OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 


A  Handbook  for  the  Analysis  of 
Expository  Essays 


BY 


NORMAN  FOERSTER 

Associate  Professor  of  English  in  the  University 
of  North  Carolina 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1915, 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


THE   QUINN    4    BODEN    CO.    PRESS 
RAHWAY,    N.    J. 


PREFACE 

THIS  little  treatise  is  the  result  of  an  endeavor 
to  find  a  fairly  rigid,  formal  method  of  outlining 
that  could  actually  be  taught.  Virtually  every- 
thing that  has  been  written  on  outlining  refrains 
from  venturing  beyond  miscellaneous  mechanical 
directions,  apparently  on  the  assumption  that  the 
fundamental  processes  involved  are  of  an  intuitive 
nature  and  cannot  be  taught.  To  a  mature  mind, 
they  are  more  or  less  intuitive,  and  it  is  desirable 
that  they  should  be  so.  But  they  need  not  be 
intuitive ;  it  is  possible  to  create  a  method  that 
presents  definite  directions  at  every  stage  of  the 
process,  a  method  which  is  easy  to  teach  and  easy 
to  learn  and  a  mastery  of  which  is  of  great  value. 
The  author  believes  that  in  this  text-book  he  has 
explained  such  a  method.  It  has  been  used  profit- 
ably, at  all  events,  by  the  freshman  class  in  the 
University  of  Wisconsin. 

It  is  expected  that  the  book  will  be  used  in 
connection  with  Essays  for  College  Men  (Holt), 
or  any  other  collection  of  orderly  expository  writ- 
ing. It  is  not  expected  that  it  will  be  used  in 
connection  with  rambling  expository  essays  or  the 
"  personal  essays  "  of  Lamb  and  Stevenson. 


431987 


iv  PREFACE 

Although  the  author  believes  that  the  training 
afforded  by  the  preparation  of  analytical  outlines 
and  summaries  in  accordance  with  the  instruction 
given  in  this  book  has  most  of  the  merits  of 
training  in  argumentation  and  may  very  well  sup- 
plant the  latter,  and  although  he  believes  that  it 
goes  far  toward  teaching  students  to  read  intelli- 
gently and  to  remember  what  they  read,  he  desires 
to  state  his  opinion  that,  in  the  study  of  such 
essays  as  those  in  this  volume  and  in  the  many 
compilations  of  expository  essays,  there  is  always 
grave  danger  that  formal  structure  will  be  greatly 
overstressed,  and  that  the  class-room  will  become 
a  place  for  exercise  in  logic-chopping.  It  is  easily 
forgotten  that  the  true  center  in  the  teaching  of 
expository  essays  is  a  realization  of  the  total  sig- 
nificance of  the  thought.  This  must  be  carefully 
distinguished,  not  only  from  an  image  of  the 
framework  of  the  thought,  as  if  literature  were 
a  matter  of  building  blocks,  but  also  from  a  blind 
memory  of  phrases,  as  if  literature  consisted  of 
a  mass  of  formulae.  To  the  latter  error,  such  an 
essay  as  Matthew  Arnold's  "  Literature  and 
Science  "  lends  itself  with  particular  aptness ;  of 
ten  students  who,  after  reading  it  attentively,  are 
certain  that  they  understand  it,  perhaps  not  one 
has  obtained  so  much  as  a  glimpse  of  the  full 
significance  of  the  ideas. 

The   author   is   indebted   to  Dr.    Frederick   A. 


PREFACE  v 

Manchester,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  who 
has  read  the  manuscript,  and  to  Professor  Karl 
Young,  also  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  who 
has  been  everything  but  a  collaborator. 

N.  F. 
July,  1914. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

PAGE 


I. 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  PROCESS 

.       .       3 

II 

THE    MAIN    DIFFICULTY      .... 

5 

III. 

IV. 
V. 
VI 

COMPOSING  THE  SUMMARY  SENTENCES 
COMPOSING  THE  GROUP  SENTENCES  . 
COMPOSING    THE    THESIS      .... 

.       6 
.       .     11 
.       .     17 
.     19 

VTT. 

THE  SUMMARY 

23 

PART  II 

"  THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  "  BY  WOODROW  WILSON,  WITH 

MARGINAL  OUTLINE 31 

"  KNOWLEDGE  VIEWED  IN  RELATION  TO  PROFESSIONAL 
SKILL"  BY  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN,  WITH 
MARGINAL  OUTLINE 57 

OUTLINE  OF  "  THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  "  .        .        .        .95 

OUTLINE  OF  "  KNOWLEDGE  VIEWED  IN  RELATION  TO  PRO- 
FESSIONAL SKILL  " 97 

SUMMARY  OF  "  THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  "  .       .       .        .99 

APPENDIX 
To  THE  INSTRUCTOR  .  .103 


PART  I 


OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

I.  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  PROCESS 

WHEN  we  have  heard  a  lecture,  we  can  ordinarily 
report  the  general  topic  in  a  mere  phrase  or  two. 
If  a  friend  inquires  what  the  lecturer  talked  about, 
we  perhaps  reply :  "  The  spirit  of  learning — the 
need  of  it  in  our  colleges  to-day."  Should  the  in- 
quirer press  us  for  further  information,  we  men- 
tion— if  we  can  recall  them — the  two  or  three  chief 
"  points  "  made  by  the  speaker.  This  oral  state- 
ment of  the  topic  and  the  sub-topics  forms  an 
outline  or  summary.  The  mental  processes  in- 
volved in  the  preparation  of  the  most  elaborate 
written  outline  or  summary  are  identical  with  those 
involved  in  this  simple  oral  outline  or  summary. 
In  both  cases  we  ask  ourselves  precisely  what  the 
topic  is,  and  how  that  topic  is  treated, — under 
what  divisions  the  discussion  has  been  carried  on. 
If,  in  listening  to  a  lecture,  we  take  notes  on 
paper  rather  than  in  our  minds,  the  result  is  a 
more  or  less  useful  outline  or  summary — the  de- 
gree of  usefulness  depending  both  on  the  clearness 
of  the  lecture  and  on  the  intelligence  of  the 
listener.  There  is  no  fundamental  difference  be- 

3 


AND  SUMMARIES 

tween  lecture  notes  and  an  outline  or  summary. 
Again,  in  taking  reading  notes,  we  go  through  ex- 
actly the  same  mental  operations ;  we  try  to  find 
the  main  ideas  and  to  relate  with  them  the  sub- 
ordinate ideas.  Finally,  whenever  we  study, — 
whenever,  that  is,  we  read  with  concentration,  en- 
deavoring to  select  what  is  important  so  that  it 
will  be  indelibly  stamped  on  our  minds,  and  put 
aside  what  is  least  important  so  that  it  will  not 
confuse  us, — we  use  our  minds  in  quite  the  same 
manner.  In  all  these  cases,  the  mental  processes 
are  fundamentally  identical.  Whether  we  report  a 
lecture  by  the  spoken  word  or  by  the  written 
word,  whether  we  write  notes  on  our  reading  or 
study  it  without  writing  notes,  it  is  inevitably  a 
matter  of  distinguishing  between  degrees  of  im- 
portance, of  finding  the  coordinate  main  ideas,  and 
the  ideas  subordinate  to  them,  and  the  ideas  sub- 
ordinate to  the  subordinate  ideas. 

The  readiest  means  of  practice  in  these  funda- 
mentally identical  mental  operations  is  the  prep- 
aration of  analytical  outlines  and  summaries. 
Aside  from  the  value  of  such  a  procedure  in 
strengthening  a  sense  of  form  in  writing,  and 
aside  from  its  practical  value  in  almost  any  call- 
ing that  one  may  enter,  it  has  the  highly  important 
value  of  contributing  largely  to  that  mental  dis- 
cipline which  is  the  chief  end  of  education. 


THE  MAIN  DIFFICULTY 


II.    THE  MAIN  DIFFICULTY 

Our  main  difficulty  in  outlining  or  summarizing 
an  essay  is  the  mastery  of  the  thought ;  we  shall 
find  it  easy  enough  to  tabulate  our  results  in  the 
form  of  an  outline  or  to  write  them  in  the 
form  of  a  summary  when  these  results  are  once 
firmly  in  our  grasp.  Provided  an  author  writes 
with  ordinary  clearness,  it  is  a  relatively  simple 
matter  to  follow  the  progress  of  his  thought,  to 
understand,  as  we  say,  what  we  are  reading.  But, 
after  all,  we  frequently  do  little  more  than  float 
on  the  surface  of  the  thought ;  when  we  have  done 
reading,  we  may  be  quite  powerless  to  set  down  the 
substance  of  what  we  have  read,  and  to-morrow 
our  recollection  of  it  will  be  vague  indeed.  We 
are  like  American  travelers  "  seeing  Europe  " ;  so 
far  are  we  from  remembering  what  we  have  read, 
that  we  are  lucky  if  we  can  remember  having  read 
it.  We  read  superficially — we  see  what  is  written 
but  do  not  comprehend  what  it  means.  We  read 
for  the  moment,  not  for  all  time,  and  so  we  are 
satisfied  with  the  most  casual  acquaintance  with 
the  thought.  Then,  having  read  in  this  fashion, 
we  flatter  ourselves  that  we  are  prepared  to  write 
an  outline  or  summary. 

But  really  to  master  the  thought  of  the  essay 
or  chapter  in  question,  we  must  do  a  great  deal 


6  OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

more  than  this.  At  the  very  least,  we  must  read 
the  essay  with  special  care,  or  else  read  it  two  or 
three  times;  such  a  method  will  often  serve  if  the 
essay  is  a  fairly  short  and  simple  one  like  William 
James's  "  The  Social  Value  of  the  College-bred."  l 
But  since  most  essays  are  either  fairly  long  (e.g., 
Woodrow  Wilson's  "The  Spirit  of  Learning"2) 
or  fairly  complex  (e.g.,  Cardinal  Newman's 
"  Knowledge  Viewed  in  Relation  to  Professional 
Skill"3),  we  shall  find  it  highly  desirable  habit- 
ually to  employ  the  means  of  studying  the  para- 
graphs singly  and  reducing  each  of  them  to  a 
summary  sentence. 

III.    COMPOSING  THE  SUMMARY 
SENTENCES 

Having  read  through  the  essay  once,  to  get  the 
drift  of  it,  we  return  to  the  first  paragraph,  which 
we  study  carefully — consulting  the  dictionary 
freely,  if  need  be,  and  perhaps  going  over  it  two 
or  three  times,  if  the  sense  does  not  lie  close  to  the 
surface.  When  the  meaning  of  all  parts  of  the 
paragraph  is  clear,  it  is  ordinarily  safe  to  assume 

1  Printed  in  Essays  for  College  Men;  in  Roe  and  Elliott, 
English  Prose;  and  in  Fulton,  Expository  Writing. 

2  Printed  in  Essays  for  College  Men  and  in  the  present 
volume. 

3  Printed  in  Essays  for  College  Men;  in  Carpenter  and 
Brewster,    Modern    English    Prose;    and    in    the    present 
volume. 


SUMMARY  SENTENCES  7 

that  the  meaning  of  the  paragraph  as  a  whole 
is  also  clear,  and  then — and  not  until  then — we 
are  prepared  to  state  the  meaning  of  the  para- 
graph in  what  might  be  called  a  Summary  Sen- 
tence. Thus,  if  we  are  analyzing  the  paragraphs 
of  "  The  Spirit  of  Learning  "  (see  pp.  31-56),  we 
should  perhaps  set  down  as  the  first  summary 
sentence  something  like  this: 

We  have  fallen  into  a  sympathetic  discontent  with 
the  college. 

That  gives  us  the  meaning  of  the  paragraph  in 
a  nutshell.  One  might  suppose  that  we  could  save 
ourselves  a  deal  of  trouble  by  finding  the  Topic 
Sentence,  which  is  usually  the  first  sentence  of  the 
paragraph,  and  adopting  that  as  the  Summary 
Sentence;  but  though  the  two  frequently  coincide 
in  part,  they  rarely  do  so  altogether,  and  they 
are  sometimes  totally  different.  The  reason  that 
they  do  not  fully  coincide  is  that,  whereas  the 
summary  sentence  contains  all  the  sense  of  the 
paragraph  in  small  compass,  the  topic  sentence 
often  does  little  more  than  point  to  the  subject 
treated,  without  indicating  precisely  how  it  is 
treated;  the  summary  sentence  is  always  like  the 
kernel  of  a  nut,  the  topic  sentence  is  often  no  more 
than  the  label  on  a  bottle. 

The  summary  sentence  that  we  have  just  com- 
posed— 


8  OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

We  have  fallen  into  a  sympathetic  discontent  with 
the  college 

— is  fairly  close  to  the  topic  sentence,  which  reads : 

We  have  fallen  of  late  into  a  deep  discontent  with 
the  college,  with  the  life  and  the  work  of  the  under- 
graduates in  our  universities. 

But  note  one  important  deviation, — the  substi- 
tution of  "  sympathetic  "  for  "  deep."  After 
saying  that  our  discontent  is  deep,  Mr.  Wilson 
is  at  pains  to  make  clear  that  it  is  deep  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  highly  sympathetic,  not  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  hostile  or  captious.  If  we  are  to 
summarize  the  paragraph  in  one  sentence,  we  can- 
not afford  to  neglect  a  distinction  the  discussion 
of  which  occupies  a  considerable  part  of  the  para- 
graph. Again,  the  topic  sentence  of  the  second 
paragraph  does  not  contain  enough.  It  reads : 

The  American  college  has  played  a  unique  part  in 
American  life. 

What  that  unique  part  is,  the  sentence  does  not 
even  hint  at,  and  yet  every  other  sentence  of  the 
paragraph  deals  with  it  more  or  less  explicitly. 
Accordingly,  our  summary  sentence  will  run  some- 
what as  follows: 

The  American  college,  in  being  the  seat  of  ideals, 
has  played  a  unique  part  in  American  life. 

In  addition  to  this  danger  of  confusing  the  sum- 
mary sentence  with  the  topic  sentence,  two  other 


SUMMARY  SENTENCES  9 

considerations  need  mention.  First,  whenever  pos- 
sible, we  should  indicate,  by  means  of  connectives, 
the  relation  of  every  summary  sentence  to  the  one 
immediately  preceding.  The  two  sentences  already 
given  could  not  readily  be  related  to  each  other, 
since  the  author  does  not  indicate  the  relation  be- 
tween the  paragraphs.  But  the  third  summary 
sentence  could  easily  be  joined  to  the  second  if  we 
wrote  it  after  this  fashion : 

On  account  of  its  absorption  in  ideals,  it  has  differed 
strongly,  in  purposes  and  spirit,  from  the  professional 
schools. 

For  further  illustrations,  see  the  summary  sen- 
tences below. 

The  other  consideration  is  this:  we  should  al- 
ways prefer  to  write  summary  sentences  as  periodic 
rather  than  as  loose  sentences.  This  will  auto- 
matically discourage  the  composition  of  vague, 
straggling  sentences,  and  on  the  other  hand  will 
encourage  the  composition  of  the  compact,  definite 
type  of  sentence  that  is  especially  desirable  as  a 
summary  sentence. 

Bearing  in  mind  these  several  considerations,  we 
may  proceed  to  reduce  the  paragraphs  of  "  The 
Spirit  of  Learning  "  to  these  summary  sentences : 

SUMMARY  SENTENCES,  "  THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  " 

1.  We  have  fallen  into  a  sympathetic  discontent 
with  the  college. 


10         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

2.  The  American  college,  in  being  the  seat  of  ideals, 
has  played  a  unique  part  in  American  life. 

3.  On  account  of  its  absorption  in  ideals,  it  has 
differed   strongly,   in   purposes   and  spirit,  from  the 
professional  schools. 

4.  Crudities  in  what  I  have  said  will  be  removed 
as  I  proceed. 

5.  In  losing  its  defmiteness  of  aim,  the  college  has 
profited  by  many  of  the  changes. 

6.  But   these    changes    have   also    resulted   in    an 
almost  complete  disorganization,  which,  since  the  col- 
lege is  the  root  of  our  intellectual  life,  calls  for  re- 
organization. 

7.  The  disorganization  was  brought  about  by  the 
introduction  of  the  elective  system. 

8.  The  elective  system  resulted  in  a  divorce  be- 
tween the  studies  and  college  life,  and  an  estrange- 
ment of  teachers  from  the  life  of  the  students. 

9.  Meanwhile,    the    constituency    of    the    college 
wholly  changed  through  the  growth  of  a  non-bookish 
majority. 

10.  This,  then,  is  the  situation  that  we  must  meet 
with  a  new  conception  of  the  function  of  the  college. 

11.  The  chief  mistake  we  have  made  is  the  em- 
phasis we  have  laid  on  instruction  rather  than  the 
life  of  the  mind. 

12.  The  life  of  the  mind  is  the  result  of  an  at- 
mosphere. 

13.  The  key  to  the  matter  lies  in  our  realizing  that 
the  object  of  the  college  is  not  learning,  but  disci- 
pline and  the  enlightenment  of  the  mind. 

14.  What,  therefore,  we  should  seek  to  impart  is 
the  spirit  of  learning. 

15.  A    serious    misunderstanding    that    would    be 
removed  by  an  acceptance  of  this  idea  is  that  between 
the  teachers,  who  desire  to  impart  learning,  and  the 
parents   of   the   students,   who   desire   for   their   sons 
what  they  get  out  of  the  life  of  the  college. 


GROUP  SENTENCES  11 

16.  The  parents  are  right  in  this,  provided  that 
the  life  of  the  college  includes  the  spirit  of  learning. 

17.  Since  the  college  produces  its  effects  through 
its  atmosphere,  the  spirit  of  learning  must  thrive  out- 
side the  class-room. 

18.  This  it  will  never  do  until  the  teacher  makes 
himself  a  part  of  the  life  outside  the  class-room. 

19.  From   the  point  of   view   I   have   maintained, 
such  proposals  as  that  limiting  the  period  of  general 
study  to  two  years  are  absurd ;  for  a  college  education 
demands  a  special  environment  for  a  period  of  four 
years. 

20.  Athletics    and    other    non-academic    activities 
thrive  unduly  because  study  does  not  compete  with 
them. 

21.  The  same. 

22.  The  same. 

23.  The    university    authorities,    therefore,    must 
create   a   society  of  teachers  and  students. 

24.  The  creation  of  such  society,  the  creation  of 
a  spirit  of  learning,  cannot  be  achieved  through  legis- 
lation. 

25.  Whatever   method   is   used,   the   nursery   atti- 
tude must  be  avoided. 

26.  My  plea,  then,  is  that  we  reorganize  the  col- 
lege in  such  a  manner  that  it  shall  become  a  home 
for  the  spirit  of  learning. 


IV.    COMPOSING   THE   GROUP   SENTENCES 

Although  the  series  of  summary  sentences  that 
we  now  have  before  us  is  in  itself  a  kind  of  outline, 
it  is  of  relatively  little  value  for  the  reason  that 


12         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

it  indicates  no  degrees  of  importance — the  sen- 
tences are  placed  one  after  another  as  if  any  one 
of  them  had  as  important  a  mission  as  any  other. 
In  other  words,  the  arrangement  is  coordinate 
throughout.  But  inasmuch  as  the  best  type  of 
outline  or  summary  is  that  which  indicates  degrees 
of  importance  by  subordination  as  well  as  coordi- 
nation, we  shall  have  to  proceed  farther  by  seek- 
ing the  main  divisions  and  the  subdivisions  of  the 
structure.  The  process  is  as  follows. 

Concentrating  our  attention  on  the  thought  em- 
bodied in  the  series  of  summary  sentences  before 
us,  we  read  them  over  carefully,  endeavoring  to 
arrange  them  in  groups.  Whenever  there  is  a  dis- 
tinct turn  in  the  thought,  we  are  warned  that  we 
have  reached  a  new  group.  The  first  sentence — 

We  have  fallen  into  a  sympathetic  discontent  with 
the  college 

— obviously  stands  by  itself,  since  the  second — 

The  American  college,  in  being  the  seat  of  ideals, 
has  played  a  unique  part  in  American  life 

— brings  us  to  a  new  aspect  of  the  discussion ;  the 
first  sentence  constitutes,  therefore,  by  itself  a 
main  division  of  the  thought-structure.  The  sec- 
ond sentence,  however,  does  not  stand  by  itself, 
since  the  third — 


GROUP  SENTENCES  13 

On  account  of  its  absorption  in  ideals,  it  has  dif- 
fered strongly,  in  purposes  and  spirit,  from  the  pro- 
fessional schools 

—clearly  deals  with  the  same  general  matter;  the 
second  and  third  consequently  form  a  group,  and 
with  them  we  might  place  the  fourth — 

Crudities  in  what  I  have  said  will  be  removed  as 
I  proceed 

— which,  though  transitional  in  character,  is  re- 
lated more  intimately  with  what  goes  before  than 
with  what  follows.  When  we  come  to  the  fifth 
sentence — 

In  losing  its  definiteness  of  aim,  the  college  has 
profited  by  many  of  the  changes 

— we  are  aware  of  another  turn  in  the  thought: 
so  far  Mr.  Wilson  has  been  concerned  with  the 
function  of  the  old  American  college,  but  now  he 
is  concerned  with  the  changes  that  the  college  has 
experienced  in  recent  years.  This  subject  is  held 
before  us  in  the  sixth,  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  and 
tenth  sentences,  the  tenth  closing  the  subject  and 
opening  the  next  subject.  This  group,  then,  is 
composed  of  six  sentences.  The  next  group  we 
shall  find  to  include  sentences  11-17;  and  the  last 
group,  sentences  18-26. 

What  we  have  been  doing  might  be  represented 
diagrammatically  in  this  manner: 


14         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 


7 

8 

9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22  <( 
23 
24 
25 
26 


GROUP  SENTENCES  15 

The  twenty-six  sentences  have  been  divided  into 
five  groups  according  to  the  aspects  of  the  whole 
discussion  with  which  they  deal.  This  we  found 
to  be  a  fairly  easy  process  because  the  summary 
sentences  had  been  composed  with  care.  Had  con- 
nectives not  been  used  frequently,  the  relation  of 
sentence  with  sentence  would  have  been  less 
obvious ;  and  had  any  of  the  sentences  misrepre- 
sented the  contents  of  the  paragraph,  we  might 
have  been  seriously  misled  and  perhaps  even  al- 
together baffled. 

Now  that  the  groups  are  marked  off,  we  can 
readily  enough  compose  sentences  that  will  be  large 
enough  in  meaning  to  embrace  all  the  thought  of 
the  several  groups — Group  Sentences  they  might 
be  called.  For  example,  sentences  2-4,  the  second 
group,  are  comprised  in  this  group  sentence: 

The  American  college  has  played  a  unique  part  in 
American  life. 

And  sentences   5-10,  the   third   group,   are   com- 
prised in  this  sentence : 


The   changes   that   have   taken   place,   though   not 
lueles 
ization. 


<->  A  C7 

valueless,  have  resulted  in  almost  complete  disorgan- 


For  the  other  group  sentences,  see  pp.  17-18. 

Our  diagram,  to  show  this  additional  step,  might 
be  drawn  in  this  wise : 


16 


OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 


I  

1 

2 

f 

II  

3  < 

4 

5 

6 

7 

Ill  

8^ 

9 

10 

11 

- 

12 

13 

IV  

14^ 

15 

16 

17 

18 

r 

19 

20 

21 

V  

22  i 

23 

24 

25 

26 

COMPOSING  THE  THESIS  17 


V.    COMPOSING  THE  THESIS 

We  shall  be  ready  to  write  the  outline  or  sum- 
mary after  one  more  step.  This  step  is  the  com- 
position of  the  Thesis, — a  single  sentence,  prefer- 
ably a  complex  sentence,  that  summarizes  the  whole 
essay  by  an  interweaving  of  the  group  sentences. 
The  title  of  the  essay  often  supplies  a  hint  as  to 
what  shall  go  into  this  sentence,  but  it  does  not 
invariably  do  so,  and  is  in  most  cases  a  mere  label, 
indicating  what  is  under  discussion  but  not  what 
is  said  regarding  what  is  under  discussion.  The 
thesis  sentence  should  always  state  the  central  idea 
of  the  essay,  and  it  should  ordinarily  state  in  addi- 
tion one  or  two  of  the  less  important  ideas.  These 
ideas — both  the  central  and  the  less  important — 
may  be  found  most  conveniently  by  the  following 
method. 

Examine  the  sentences  that  represent  the 
groups,  in  order  to  ascertain  which  are  least  im- 
portant. Of  the  five  group  sentences  of  "  The 
Spirit  of  Learning  " — 

I.    We  have  fallen  into  a  sympathetic  discontent 

with  the  college. 
II.    The   American   college   has  played  a  unique 

part  in  American  life. 

III.  The  changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the 
college,  though  not  valueless,  have  resulted 
in  almost  complete  disorganization. 


18         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

IV.    In    effecting   the    needed    reorganization,    we 
should   seek  to   make  the   college   a   place 
where  the  spirit  of  learning  may  flourish. 
V.    Such  a  reorganization  will  involve  the  follow- 
ing considerations. 

— it  is  obvious  that  I.  may  be  ignored,  and  that 
of  those  that  remain,  IV.  is  the  most  important, 
III.  perhaps  next  most  important,  and  II.  and  V. 
least  important.  Sentences  I.,  II.,  and  V.  might 
therefore  be  left  out  of  consideration ;  if  our  thesis 
sentence  gives  the  substance  of  III.  and  IV.,  it  will 
contain  enough.  These,  then,  are  the  two  sen- 
tences that  are  to  be  interwoven : 

The  changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the  college, 
though  not  valueless,  have  resulted  in  almost  complete 
disorganization. 

In  effecting  the  needed  reorganization,  we  should 
seek  to  make  the  college  a  place  where  the  spirit  of 
learning  may  flourish. 

Since  the  second  of  these  two  sentences  is  more  im- 
portant than  the  first,  it  will  be  recast  as  the  main 
clause  of  the  thesis  sentence,  and  the  first  as  a  sub- 
ordinate clause, — with  this  result : 

The  American  college,  having  fallen  into  a  state 
of  disorganization,  should  be  reorganized  in  such  a 
manner  that  it  will  become  a  place  where  the  spirit 
of  learning  may  flourish, 


THE  OUTLINE  19 


VI.    THE  OUTLINE 

What  has  been  said  thus  far  applies  equally  to 
the  outline  and  to  the  summary.  This  section  is 
concerned  only  with  the  outline. 

When  we  have  reduced  the  paragraphs  to  sum- 
mary sentences,  and  combined  these  sentences  in 
groups,  and  composed  the  group  sentences  and  the 
thesis,  we  are  in  a  position  to  write  the  outline. 
First  we  write  the  word  Thesis;  below  that,  the 
thesis  itself;  below  that,  the  words  Outline  Proper; 
and  below  that,  the  several  sections  of  the  outline. 

Since  the  group  sentences  that  we  have  already 
composed  are  to  serve  as  our  main  headings,  the 
principal  question  that  now  confronts  us  is:  How 
much  detail  shall  we  give  under  each  main  heading? 
It  is  hard  to  answer  this  question  definitely,  because 
we  are  free  to  use  as  much  or  as  little  detail  as  we 
please.  It  would  be  possible  to  outline  "  The 
Spirit  of  Learning  "  on  one  page  of  writing  paper, 
or  on  a  dozen  pages.  But  here,  as  elsewhere,  there 
is  a  golden  mean :  for  most  purposes  "  The  Spirit 
of  Learning  "  would  be  most  effectively  outlined 
on  three  or  four  pages.  If  an  outline  is  too  short, 
it  has  an  effect  of  meagerness;  if  it  is  too  long, 
it  confuses  through  its  abundance.  In  any  event, 
however,  we  must  observe  one  simple  principle :  the 
scale  must  be  the  same  throughout.  Just  as  a  map 


20         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

of  a  country  may  be  large  or  small,  but  in  either 
case  must  be  drawn  consistently,  so  an  outline  may 
be  long  or  short,  but  must  be  on  the  same  scale  in 
every  part.  If  it  is  brief,  only  the  most  important 
ideas  should  be  used — and  this  must  be  true  with- 
out exception;  if  it  is  long,  considerable  detail 
should  be  given — and  in  no  part  may  such  detail 
be  omitted. 

One  other  general  point  should  be  remembered 
in  the  writing  of  an  outline, — the  necessity  of  dis- 
tinguishing with  unceasing  vigilance  between  what 
is  important  and  what  is  unimportant,  between  the 
statement  of  significant  ideas  or  facts  and  the 
passages  that  elaborate,  reinforce,  or  momentarily 
digress.  We  might  profitably  regard  each  gen- 
eral statement  as  a  thing  to  be  proved  or  illus- 
trated,— the  proof  or  illustration  being  the  sub- 
ordinate material.  If  we  write  with  the  summary 
sentences  as  well  as  the  essay  before  us,  we  must 
bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  many  of  the  summary 
sentences,  with  the  corresponding  paragraphs,  will 
not  be  used  directly  in  the  outline  because  in  them- 
selves they  are  of  slight  importance,  however  use- 
ful they  may  be  in  emphasizing  an  idea,  or  sum- 
marizing a  set  of  ideas,  or  joining  one  set  of  ideas 
with  another.  Thus,  summary  sentences  4,  21,  22, 
and  26  have  no  place  at  all  in  the  outline.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  must  also  bear  in  mind  the  fact 
that  the  summary  sentences  alone  will  not  always 


THE  OUTLINE  21 

give  us  enough  subordinate  material;  so  that,  on 
rare  occasions,  we  must  turn  to  the  book  for  more 
detail, — more  proof,  or  more  illustration. 

In  addition  to  these  general  considerations,  we 
should  observe  the  following  more  or  less  mechani- 
cal directions : 

1.  Use  these  symbols,  and  use  them  in  the  order 
given : 

I 

A. 
1. 

a. 
1'. 

a  . 

Frequently  the  first  two  or  three  symbols  will 
suffice.  Never  write  two  symbols  on  the  same  line ; 
that  is,  avoid  such  forms  as  I. A.  and  A.I. 

2.  Indent  precisely  as  in  the  outlines  printed 
on  pp.  95-98.     The  principle  of  indentation  used 
here  departs  from  that  used  in  indicating  para- 
graphs because   it   is   essential   that  the   symbols 
should  stand  forth  boldly. 

3.  Write  each  heading  in  the  form  of  a  com- 
plete statement.    Thus,  instead  of  writing, 

II.  The  unique  part  which  the  American  college 
has  played  in  American  life, 

write, 


28         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

II.  The   American   college   has    played   a    unique 
part  in  American  life. 

4?.  Use  connectives  freely.  Among  the  most 
useful  connectives  are  "  for,"  "  the  following," 
"  these,"  "  that  is,"  "  viz.,"  "  for  example."  Avoid 
using  such  words  as  "  therefore,"  "  hence,"  and 
"  consequently  "  to  connect  a  minor  heading  with  a 
main  heading ;  these  words  reverse  the  usual  order 
of  the  outline  by  putting  a  main  statement  in  a 
subordinate  position.  (Although  there  are  occa- 
sions when  the  usual  order  may  be  ignored,  they 
are  so  infrequent  as  to  be  negligible.) 

5.  Whenever    possible,    use    the    parallel    con- 
struction.    Always  prefer  this  form: 

A.  It  has  been  the  seat  of  ideals. 

B.  It   has   avoided   the   narrow   concentration   of 
the  professional  school. 

to  this  form : 

A.  It  has  been  the  seat  of  ideals. 

B.  The  narrow  concentration  of  the  professional 
schools  has  been  avoided. 

6.  Be    concise — reduce    all   statements   to    the 
smallest  bulk,  and  avoid  the  wording  of  the  original 
when  by  rephrasing  you  can  state  the  idea  in  a 
more  condensed  form.     Instead  of  writing, 

III.  The  changes  that  have  taken  place,  although 
they  have  not  been  without  value,  have  resulted  in  a 
state  of  disorganization  which  is  all  but  complete. 

write, 


THE  SUMMARY  23 

III.  The  changes  that  have  taken  place,  though 
not  valueless,  have  resulted  in  almost  complete  dis- 
organization. 

7.  In  seeking  brevity,  however,  do  not  omit 
articles,  etc.,  in  "  telegram  style."  Avoid  such 
headings  as  the  following: 

III.  Changes  taken  place,  though  not  valueless, 
have  resulted  almost  complete  disorganization. 


VII.    THE  SUMMARY 

The  preparation  for  the  writing  of  a  summary 
is  the  same  as  that  for  the  writing  of  an  outline, — 
we  should  have  before  us,  together  with  the  essay 
itself,  the  summary  sentences  arranged  in  groups, 
the  group  sentences,  and  the  thesis. 

In  summarizing  an  essay  of  the  length  of  "  The 
Spirit  of  Learning,"  it  is  almost  invariably  pos- 
sible for  us  to  confine  ourselves  to  a  single  para- 
graph. The  first  sentence  of  this  paragraph 
should  be  the  thesis.1 

The  rest  of  the  paragraph  should  be  built  up 
around  the  ideas  stated  in  the  group  sentences ; 

1  When  the  thesis  is  so  long  that  it  would  form  an  ex- 
tremely awkward  initial  sentence,  some  of  the  less  im- 
portant parts  of  it  may  be  omitted.  Our  thesis  for  "  The 
Spirit  of  Learning "  is  perhaps  not  too  long  to  serve  as 
the  initial  sentence  of  a  paragraph,  but  whoever  felt  that 
it  was  too  long  could  easily  omit  the  phrase  "  having  fallen 
into  a  state  of  disorganization." 


24         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

by  care  in  the  choice  of  connectives,  we  can  make 
these  ideas  emphatic,  and  indicate  what  kinds  of 
subordinate  relation  the  subordinate  ideas  bear 
towards  them.  The  first  group  sentence,  since  it 
merely  introduces  the  others,  may  well  be  disposed 
of  in  a  sentence  whose  chief  function  it  is  to  point 
in  the  direction  of  the  second  group  sentence.  It 
might  read : 

The  sympathetic  discontent  which  we  now  feel  for 
the  college  has  been  occasioned  by  its  decline  as  an 
instrument  in  our  national  life. 

The  second  group  sentence,  though  it  involves 
three  summary  sentences,  may  also  be  confined  to 
one  sentence: 

In  the  past,  it  has  played  a  unique  part  in  that 
life,  in  being  the  seat  of  ideals,  and,  unlike  the  pro- 
fessional schools,  a  place  of  orientation. 

The  third  group  sentence,  involving  six  summary 
sentences,  and  dealing  with  important  matter, 
must  be  treated  at  greater  length.  Note,  in  the 
following  passage,  that  the  group  sentence  has 
been  used  as  the  first  sentence  of  the  passage,  that 
this  first  sentence  is  related  with  what  has  gone 
before  by  the  use  of  "  But,"  and  that  the  succeed- 
ing sentences  are  related  to  each  other  by  the  use 
of  various  means  of  connection  (these  means  have 
been  indicated  by  underscoring)  : 

But  the  college  has  undergone  fundamental  changes, 
which,  though  not  valueless,  have  resulted  in  almost 


THE  SUMMARY  25 

complete  disorganization.  The  principal  cause  of  the 
changes  that  brought  about  this  disorganization  was 
the  introduction  of  the  elective  system.  This  caused 
a  divorce  between  the  studies  and  the  life  of  the  col- 
lege, and  an  estrangement  between  teachers  and  stu- 
dents. Meanwhile,  the  constituency  of  the  college 
changed  wholly,  since  now  men  go  to  college,  not  for 
learning,  but  for  the  incidental  associations  of  the 
place.  These  are  the  changes,  then,  that  have  brought 
about  the  disorganization  of  the  college,  and  have 
thus  created  the  need  of  a  reorganization. 

The  fourth  group  sentence,  involving  the  next 
seven  summary  sentences,  and  also  dealing  with 
important  matter,  is  represented  by  a  fairly  long 
passage,  which  begins  with  the  group  sentence  and 
which  is  made  coherent  through  the  scrupulous  use 
of  connectives: 

In  effecting  this  reorganization,  we  should,  hold  be- 
fore us  the  conception  of  the  college  as  a  place  where 
the  spirit  of  learning  may  flourish.  The  chief  mis- 
take that  we  have  made  is  the  emphasis  we  have 
laid  on  instruction  rather  than  the  life  of  the  mind; 
we  must  realize  that  the  object  of  the  college  is  not 
learning,  but  discipline  and  the  enlightenment  of  the 
mind,  and  that  what  we  should  seek  to  impart,  there- 
fore, is  the  spirit  of  learning.  Accordingly,  before 
we  can  proceed,  we  must  remove  a  serious  misunder- 
standing, that,  namely,  between  the  teachers,  who  de- 
sire to  impart  learning,  and  the  parents  of  the  stu- 
dents, who  desire  for  their  sons  what  may  be  got 


26         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

out  of  the  life  of  the  college.  In  a  sense  the  parents 
are  right;  they  are  right  in  emphasizing  the  life  of 
the  college.  But  that  life  should  include  the  spirit 
of  learning. 

Finally,  the  fifth  group  sentence,  involving  the  last 
nine  summary  sentences,  and  also  dealing  with  im- 
portant matter,  is  represented  as  follows : 

Now,  a  reorganization  which  aims  to  make  the  col- 
lege a  place  where  the  spirit  of  learning  may  flourish, 
involves  several  considerations.  In  the  first  place, 
the  life  of  the  college  will  never  include  the  spirit  of 
learning  until  the  teacher  makes  himself  a  part  of  the 
life  outside  the  class-room.  Again,  the  student  must 
live  in  the  special  environment  which  the  college  de- 
mands for  four  years;  such  proposals  as  that  limiting 
the  period  of  general  study  to  two  years  are  absurd. 
Again,  athletics  and  other  non-academic  activities, 
which  have  been  giving  us  much  concern,  thrive  un- 
duly because  study  does  not  compete  with  them; 
change  the  environment,  introduce  the  spirit  of  learn- 
ing, and  they  will  assume  the  subordinate  position 
which  is  their  due.  Further,  it  is  important  for  us 
to  realize  that  such  a  society  of  teachers  and  students 
as  has  been  described  cannot  be  achieved  through 
legislation,  and  that,  whatever  method  is  used,  we 
must  not  resort  to  the  nursery  attitude — to  the  em- 
ployment of  artificial  assistance. 

For  the  summary  printed  as  a  whole,  see  pp.  99- 
101. 


THE  SUMMARY  27 

In  the  writing  of  summaries,  two  points  not  al- 
luded to  in  the  above  discussion  should  be  borne 
in  mind.  The  first  is  the  danger  of  overfullness 
at  the  beginning  and  haste  at  the  end.  It  is  so 
easy  to  be  diffuse  that  we  are  inclined  to  use  far 
too  much  detail  at  the  beginning,  and  then,  observ- 
ing that  our  scale  is  too  large,  and  tiring  some- 
what as  we  proceed,  we  are  prone  to  omit  more 
and  more  material,  even  indispensable  material,  so 
that  if  the  plan  of  our  summary  were  illustrated 
by  a  diagram,  it  would  look  like  an  inverted  cone. 
The  second  point  is  this :  beware  of  all  suggestion 
of  prejudice.  By  the  choice  of  a  word  here,  by 
the  turn  of  a  phrase  there,  one  may  convey  a  sense 
of  one's  personal  attitude  toward  the  question 
under  discussion.  It  would  never  do  to  say,  "  We 
have  fallen  into  a  sympathetic  discontent  with  the 
college — though  perhaps  the  author  exaggerates 
the  amount  of  discontent " ;  or  to  say,  "  The 
teacher  should  make  himself  a  part  of  the  life  out- 
side the  class-room.  (Personally,  I  do  not  agree 
with  Mr.  Wilson  in  this.)"  If  the  pronoun  "  I  " 
occurs  at  all  in  the  summary,  it  should  refer  to 
the  author  of  the  essay,  not  to  the  person  writing 
the  summary. 


PART  II 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING1 

WOODROW  WILSON 

1.  WE  have  fallen  of  late  into  a  deep  discontent 
with  the  college,  with  the  life  and  the  work  of  the 
undergraduates  in  our  universities.  It 

is  an  honorable  discontent,  bred  in  us  by 

J 

devotion,  not  by  captiousness  or  hostil-      The  American  college, 

ity  or  by  an  unreasonable  impatience  to   having    fallen    into    a 

state  of  disorganization, 
set  the  world  right.    We  are  not  critics,   should    be    reorganized 

but    anxious    and    thoughtful    friends.   !?  "£*  a  manner  fa* 

it  will  become  a  place 

We  are  neither  cynics   nor  pessimists,  where    the     spirit     of 

but  honest  lovers  of  a  good  thing,  of  learnin*  may  ^ourish' 

whose    slightest    deterioration    we    are  OUTLINE  PROPER: 

jealous.     We  would  fain  keep  one  of  We  have  'fallen  into 

the  finest  instrumentalities   of  our  na-  a  sympathetic  discontent 

,  .      .  with  the  college. 

tional  life  from  falling  short  of  its  best, 

and  believe  that  by  a  little  care  and  candor  we 
can  do  so. 

£.  The  American  college  has  played  a  unique 
part  in  American  life.  So  long  as  its  aims  were 
definite  and  its  processes  authoritative  it  formed 

1  Oration  delivered  before  the  Harvard  Chapter  of  Phi 
Beta  Kappa,  Sanders  Theatre,  Cambridge,  July  1,  1909. 
Reprinted  through  the  generous  permission  of  Woodrow 
Wilson  and  of  The  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine. 

31 


32         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

men  who  brought  to  thdir  tasks  an  incomparable 

morale,  a  capacity  that  seemed  more  than  indi- 

jj  vidual,    a    power    touched    with    large 

The  American  college    ideals.     The  college  has  been  the  seat 
has     played     a    unique       f    •  ^      i          ^^^       TI         t    ,      •    •  i  •  i 

part  in  American   life,    of   ldeals-      The    hberal  training   which 

for         ^  it  sought  to  impart  took  no  thought  of 

any   particular  profession   or  business,   but   was 

meant  to  reflect  in  its  few  and  simple  disciplines  the 

image  of  life  and  thought.    Men  were  bred  by  it  to 

no  skill  or  craft  or  calling:  the  disci- 

It  has  been  the  seat   pline  to  which  they  were  subjected  had 

of  ideals.  a  more  general  object.     It  was  meant 

to  prepare  them  for  the  whole  of  life  rather  than 

for  some  particular  part  of  it.     The  ideals  which 

lay  at  its  heart  were  the  general  ideals  of  conduct, 

of  right  living,  and  right  thinking,  which  made 

them  aware   of  a  world   moralized  by   principle, 

steadied  and  cleared  of  many  an  evil  thing  by  true 

and  catholic  reflection  and  just  feeling,  a  world, 

not  of  interests,  but  of  ideas. 

3.    Such  impressions,  such  challenges  to  a  man's 

spirit,  such  intimations  of  privilege  and  duty  are 

not  to  be  found  in  the  work  and  obliga- 

It  has  avoided  the  tions  of  professional  and  technical 
"o~™i:L°oi  «*oob.  They  cannot  be.  Every  call- 
and  has  served  as  a  ing  has  its  ethics,  indeed,  its  standards 

place  of  orientation.  /»    •    i  j.          j  j  -j.         ii      i 

oi  right  conduct  and  wrong,  its  outlook 

upon  action  and  upon  the  varied  relationships  of 
society.      Its     work     is     high     and     honorable, 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          33 

grounded,  it  may  be,  in  the  exact  knowledge  which 
moralizes  the  processes  of  thought,  and  in  a  skill 
which  makes  the  whole  man  serviceable.  But  it  is 
notorious  how  deep  and  how  narrow  the  absorp- 
tions of  the  professional  school  are  and  how  much 
they  are  necessarily  concentrated  upon  the  methods 
and  interests  of  a  particular  occupation.  The 
work  to  be  done  in  them  is  as  exact,  as  definite,  as 
exclusive  as  that  of  the  office  and  the  shop.  Their 
atmosphere  is  the  atmosphere  of  business,  and 
should  be.  It  does  not  beget  generous  comrade- 
ships or  any  ardor  of  altruistic  feeling  such  as 
the  college  begets.  It  does  not  contain  that  gen- 
eral air  of  the  world  of  science  and  of  letters  in 
which  the  mind  seeks  no  special  interest,  but  feels 
every  intimate  impulse  of  the  spirit  set  free  to 
think  and  observe  and  listen, — listen  to  all  the 
voices  of  the  mind.  The  professional  school 
differs  from  the  college  as  middle  age  differs 
from  youth.  It  gets  the  spirit  of  the  college 
only  by  imitation  or  reminiscence  or  contagion. 
This  is  to  say  nothing  to  its  discredit.  Its 
nature  and  objects  are  different  from  those  of 
the  college, — as  legitimate,  as  useful,  as  neces- 
sary; but  different.  The  college  is  the  place 
of  orientation;  the  professional  school  is  the 
place  of  concentration.  The  object  of  the  college 
is  to  liberalize  and  moralize;  the  object  of 
the  professional  school  is  to  train  the  powers  to 


34         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

a  special  task.  And  this  is  true  of  all  vocational 
study. 

4*.  I  am,  of  course,  using  the  words  liberalize 
and  moralize  in  their  broadest  significance,  and  I 
am  very  well  aware  that  I  am  speaking  in  the  terms 
of  an  ideal,  a  conception,  rather  than  in  the  terms 
of  realized  fact.  I  have  spoken,  too,  of  what  the 
college  did  "  so  long  as  its  aims  were  definite  and 
its  processes  authoritative,"  as  if  I  were  thinking 
of  it  wholly  in  the  past  tense  and  wished  to  inti- 
mate that  it  was  once  a  very  effective  and  ideal 
thing  but  had  now  ceased  to  exist;  so  that  one 
would  suppose  that  I  thought  the  college  lost  out 
of  our  life  and  the  present  a  time  when  such  influ- 
ences were  all  to  seek.  But  that  is  only  because 
I  have  not  been  able  to  say  everything  at  once. 
Give  me  leave,  and  I  will  slowly  write  in  the  phrases 
which  will  correct  these  impressions  and  bring  a 
true  picture  to  light. 

5.  The  college  has  lost  its  definiteness  of  aim, 
and  has  now  for  so  long  a  time  affected  to  be  too 

modest  to  assert  its  authority  over  its 
III 
The  changes  that  have   Pupils    in    any    matter    of    prescribed 

taken  place  in  the  col-    study  that  it  can  no  longer  claim  to  be 
leqe,  though  not  value-  .  . 

less,    have    resulted   in   the  nurturing  mother  it  once  was ;  but 

almost  complete  disor-    fae  college  is   neither  dead  nor  mori- 
ganization,  for  ° .  . 

bund,  and  it  has  made  up  for  its  relaxed 

discipline  and  confused  plans  of  study  by  many 
notable  gains,  which,  if  they  have  not  improved 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  35 

its  scholarship,  have  improved  the  health  and  the 

practical  morals  of  the  young  gentlemen  who  resort 

to   it,  have   enhanced   their  vigor   and  quickened 

their  whole  natures.    A  freer  choice  of  studies  has 

imparted  to  it  a  stir,  an  air  of  freedom  and  indi- 

vidual initiative,  a  wealth  and  variety 

of   instruction    which    the    old    college       There    has    been    a 

altogether  lacked.     The  development  of 


athletic    sports     and     the     immoderate    *>le,    brought    about    a 

state  of  disorganization. 
addiction  of  undergraduates  to  stimu- 

lating activities  of  all  sorts,  academic  and  unaca- 
demic,  which  improve  their  physical  habits,  fill 
their  lives  with  interesting  objects,  sometimes  im- 
portant, and  challenge  their  powers  of  organiza- 
tion and  practical  management,  have  unques- 
tionably raised  the  tone  of  morals  and  of  conduct 
in  our  colleges  and  have  given  them  an  inter- 
esting, perhaps  valuable,  connection  with  modern 
society  and  the  broader  popular  interests  of  the 
day.  No  one  need  regret  the  breaking-up  of 
the  dead  levels  of  the  old  college,  the  introduc- 
tion and  exaltation  of  modern  studies,  or  the 
general  quickening  of  life  which  has  made  of  our 
youngsters  more  manly  fellows,  if  less  docile 
pupils.  There  had  come  to  be  something  rather 
narrow  and  dull  and  morbid,  no  doubt,  about  the 
old  college  before  its  day  was  over.  If  we  gain 
our  advances  by  excessive  reactions  and  changes 
which  change  too  much,  we  at  least  gain  them, 


36         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

and  should  be  careful  not  to  lose  the  advantage 
of  them. 

6.  Nevertheless,  the  evident  fact  is,  that  we 
have  now  for  a  long  generation  devoted  ourselves  to 
promoting  changes  which  have  resulted  in  all  but 
complete  disorganization,  and  it  is  our  plain  and 
immediate  duty  to  form  our  plans  for  reorganiza- 
tion. We  must  reexamine  the  college,  reconceive 
it,  reorganize  it.  It  is  the  root  of  our  intellectual 
life  as  a  nation.  It  is  not  only  the  instrumentality 
through  which  we  must  effect  all  the  broad  prelim- 
inary work  which  underlies  sound  scholarship ;  it  is 
also  our  chief  instrumentality  of  catholic  enlight- 
enment, our  chief  means  for  giving  widespread 
stimulation  to  the  whole  intellectual  life  of  the 
country  and  supplying  ourselves  with  men  who 
shall  both  comprehend  their  age  and  duty  and 
know  how  to  serve  them  supremely  well.  Without 
the  American  college  our  young  men  would  be 
too  exclusively  shut  in  to  the  pursuit  of  individual 
interests,  would  lose  the  vital  contacts  and  emula- 
tions which  awaken  them  to  those  larger  achieve- 
ments and  sacrifices  which  are  the  highest  objects 
of  education  in  a  country  of  free  citizens,  where 
the  welfare  of  the  commonwealth  springs  out  of 
the  character  and  the  informed  purposes  of  the 
private  citizen.  The  college  will  be  found  to  lie 
somewhere  very  near  the  heart  of  American  social 
training  and  intellectual  and  moral  enlightenment. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          37 

7.  The  process  is  familiar  to  every  one  by  which 
the  disintegration  was  brought   about  which  de- 
stroyed the   old  college  with  its   fixed  B 
disciplines  and  ordered  life  and  gave  us       The    introduction    of 
our  present  problem  of  reorganization    £•<*-£  »  £ 

and     recovery.       It     centered     in     the    tween   the  studies  and 

,  ,,         ,  ,  .      ,  j    ,1        college  life,  and  an  es- 

break-up  of  the  old  curriculum  and  the    traJCgemeni  of  teachers 

introduction  of  the  principle  that  the    from    the    life    of    the 

...  ,.        students. 

student  was   to  select  his   own  studies 

from  a  great  variety  of  courses,  as  great  a  variety 
as  the  resources  of  the  college  and  the  supply  of 
teachers  available  made  possible.  But  the  change 
could  not  in  the  nature  of  things  stop  with  the 
plan  of  study.  It  held  at  its  heart  a  tremendous 
implication:  the  implication  of  full  manhood  on 
the  part  of  the  pupil,  and  all  the  untrammeled 
choices  of  manhood.  The  pupil  who  was  mature 
and  well  informed  enough  to  study  what  he  chose 
was  also  by  necessary  implication  mature  enough 
to  be  left  free  to  do  what  he  pleased,  to  choose  his 
own  associations  and  ways  of  life  outside  the  cur- 
riculum without  restraint  or  suggestion;  and  the 
varied,  absorbing  college  life  of  our  day  sprang  up 
as  the  natural  offspring  of  the  free  election  of 
studies. 

8.  There   went   along   with   the   relaxation   of 
rule    as    to   what    undergraduates    should    study, 
therefore,  an  almost  absolute  divorce  between  the 
studies  and  the  life  of  the  college,  its  business  and 


S8         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

its  actual  daily  occupations.  The  teacher  ceased 
to  look  upon  himself  as  related  in  any  responsible 
way  to  the  life  of  his  pupils,  to  what  they  should 
be  doing  and  thinking  of  between  one  class  exer- 
cise and  another,  and  conceived  his  whole  duty 
to  have  been  performed  when  he  had  given  his 
lecture  and  afforded  those  who  were  appointed  to 
come  the  opportunity  to  hear  and  heed  it  if  they 
chose.  The  teachers  of  this  new  regime,  moreover, 
were  most  of  them  trained  for  their  teaching  work 
in  German  universities,  or  in  American  universi- 
ties in  which  the  methods,  the  points  of  view,  the 
spirit,  and  the  object  of  the  German  universities 
were,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  reproduced. 
They  think  of  their  pupils,  therefore,  as  men  al- 
ready disciplined  by  some  general  training  such 
as  the  German  gymnasium  gives,  and  seeking  in 
the  university  special  acquaintance  with  particular 
studies,  as  an  introduction  to  special  fields  of  in- 
formation and  inquiry.  They  have  never  thought 
of  the  university  as  a  community  of  teachers  and 
pupils:  they  think  of  it,  rather,  as  a  body  of 
teachers  and  investigators  to  whom  those  may 
resort  who  seriously  desire  specialized  kinds  of 
knowledge.  They  are  specialists  imported  into  an 
American  system  which  has  lost  its  old  point  of 
view  and  found  no  new  one  suitable  to  the  needs 
and  circumstances  of  America.  They  do  not  think 
of  living  with  their  pupils  and  affording  them 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          39 

the  contacts  of  culture;  they  are  only  accessible 
to  them  at  stated  periods  and  for  a  definite  and 
limited  service;  and  their  teaching  is  an  interrup- 
tion to  their  favorite  work  of  research. 

9.  Meanwhile,  the  constituency  of  the  college 
has  wholly  changed.  It  is  not  only  the  bookish 
classes  who  now  send  their  sons  to  col-  c 

lege,  but  also  the  men  of  business  and       The    constituency    of 

c       n»   •  -i  ,1     •  i       the    college    has   wholly 

of   affairs,   who   expect   their   sons    to   changed  y  through     & 

follow  in  their   own   footsteps   and  do   growth  of  a  non-book- 

i        .,i        i'ii       i      i  T..I  t5^  majority. 

work  with  which  books  have  little  con- 
nection. In  the  old  days  of  which  I  have  spoken 
most  young  men  who  went  to  college  expected  to 
enter  one  or  other  of  the  learned  professions,  ex- 
pected to  have  to  do  with  books  and  some  of  the 
more  serious  kinds  of  learning  all  their  lives. 
Books  were  their  proper  introduction  to  the  work 
that  lay  before  them;  learning  was  their  natural 
discipline  and  preparation.  But  nowadays  the 
men  who  are  looking  forward  to  the  learned  pro- 
fessions are  in  a  minority  at  the  college.  Most 
undergraduates  come  out  of  an  atmosphere  of 
business  and  wish  a  breeding  which  is  consonant 
with  it.  They  do  not  wish  learning.  They  wish 
only  a  certain  freshening  of  their  faculties  for  the 
miscellaneous  contacts  of  life,  a  general  acquaint- 
ance with  what  men  are  doing  and  saying  in  their 
own  generation,  a  certain  facility  in  handling 
themselves  and  in  getting  on  with  their  fellows. 


40         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

They  are  much  more  interested  in  the  incidental 
associations  of  college  life  than  in  the  main  intel- 
lectual occupations  of  the  place.  They  want  to 
be  made  men  of,  not  scholars ;  and  the  life  led  at 
college  is  as  serviceable  for  that  as  any  of  the 
tasks  set  in  the  class-room.  If  they  want  what 
the  formal  teaching  offers  them  at  all,  it  is  for 
some  definite  and  practical  purpose  connected  with 
the  calling  they  expect  to  follow,  the  business  they 
expect  to  engage  in.  Such  pupils  are  specially 
unsuitable  for  such  teachers. 

10.  Here,  then,  is  our  situation.     Here  is  the 
little  world  of  teachers  and  pupils,  athletic  asso- 
ciations, musical  and  literary  clubs,  social  organi- 
zations and   societies  for   amusement,  class-room 
and  playground,  of  which  we  must  make  analysis, 
out  of  which  we  must  get  a  new  synthesis,  a  definite 
aim,  and  new  processes  of  authoritative  direction, 
losing  nothing  that  has  been  gained,   recovering 
what  has  been  lost.    All  the  fresh  elements  we  have 
gained  are  valuable,  many  of  the  new  points  of 
view  are  those  from  which  we  must  look  upon  the 
whole  task  and  function  of  the  college  if  we  would 
see  it  truly;  but  we  have  fallen  upon  an  almost 
hopeless    confusion    and    an    utter   dispersion    of 
energy.     We  must  pull  the  whole  inorganic  thing 
together  under  a  new  conception  of  what  the  col- 
lege must  be  and  do. 

11.  The  chief  and  characteristic  mistake  which 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          41 

the  teachers  and  governors  of  our  colleges  have 
made  in  these  latter  days  has  been  that  they  have 
devoted  themselves  and  their  plans  too 

exclusively    to   the   business,    the   very  iy« 

In  effecting  the  need- 
COmmonplace    business,    OI    instruction,    ed     reorganization,     we 

to  well-conceived  lectures  and  approved   8h™ld  seek  *?  makethe 

college    a    place    where 

class-room  method,  and  have  not  enough    the   spirit   of   learning 
regarded   the   life   of   the   mind.      The   may  ftouris*>  for 
mind  does  not  live  by  instruction.     It       we    have    been   mis- 

is  no  prolix  gut  to  be  stuffed.    The  real   *akfn    ™    <™P*™™9 

instruction  rather  than 

intellectual   life   of   a   body   of   under-    the   life   of   the   mind, 


graduates,  if  there  be  any,  manifests 
itself,  not  in  the  class-room,  but  in  what 
they  do  and  talk  of  and  set  before  themselves  as 
their  favorite  objects  between  classes  and  lectures. 
You  will  see  the  true  life  of  a  college  in  the  even- 
ings, at  the  dinner-table  or  beside  the  fire  in  the 
groups  that  gather  and  the  men  that  go  off  eagerly 
to  their  work,  where  youths  get  together  and  let 
themselves  go  upon  their  favorite  themes,  —  in  the 
effect  their  studies  have  upon  them  when  no  com- 
pulsion of  any  kind  is  on  them  and  they  are  not 
thinking  to  be  called  to  a  reckoning  of  what  they 
know. 

12.  The  effects  of  learning  are  its  real  tests, 
the  real  tests  alike  of  its  validity  and  of  its  efficacy. 
The  mind  can  be  driven,  but  that  is  not  life.  Life 
is  voluntary  or  unconscious.  It  is  breathed  in 
out  of  a  sustaining  atmosphere.  It  is  shaped  by 


42         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

environment.  It  is  habitual,  continuous,  produc- 
tive. It  does  not  consist  in  tasks  performed,  but 
in  powers  gained  and  enhanced.  It  cannot  be  com- 
municated in  class-rooms  if  its  aim  and  end  is  the 
class-room.  Instruction  is  not  its  source,  but  only 
its  incidental  means  and  medium. 

13.  Here  is  the  key  to  the  whole  matter:  the 
object  of  the  college,  as  we  have  known  and  used 
and  loved  it  in  America,  is  not  scholarship  (except 
for  the  few,  and  for  them  only  by  way  of  introduc- 
tion and  first  orientation),  but  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  life.  Its  life  and  discipline  are  meant 
to  be  a  process  of  preparation,  not  a  process  of 
information.  By  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life 
I  mean  the  life  which  enables  the  mind  to  compre- 
hend and  make  proper  use  of  the  modern  world 
and  all  its  opportunities.  The  object  of  a  liberal 
training  is  not  learning,  but  discipline  and  the 
enlightenment  of  the  mind.  The  educated  man  is 
to  be  discovered  by  his  point  of  view,  by  the  temper 
of  his  mind,  by  his  attitude  towards  life  and  his 
fair  way  of  thinking.  He  can  see,  he  can  dis- 
criminate, he  can  combine  ideas  and  perceive 
whither  they  lead;  he  has  insight  and  compre- 
hension. His  mind  is  a  practised  instrument  of 
appreciation.  He  is  more  apt  to  contribute  light 
than  heat  to  a  discussion,  and  will  oftener  than 
another  show  the  power  of  uniting  the  elements  of 
a  difficult  subject  in  a  whole  view;  he  has  the 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          43 

knowledge  of  the  world  which  no  one  can  have  who 
knows  only  his  own  generation  or  only  his  own 
task. 

14.  What  we  should  seek  to  impart  in  our  col- 
leges, therefore,  is  not  so  much  learning  itself  as 
the  spirit  of  learning.     You  can  impart  that  to 
young  men ;  and  you  can  impart  it  to  them  in  the 
three  or  four  years  at  your  disposal.     It  consists 
in  the  power  to  distinguish  good  reasoning  from 
bad,  in  the  power  to  digest  and  interpret  evidence, 
in  a  habit  of  catholic  observation  and  a  preference 
for  the  non-partisan  point  of  view,  in  an  addiction 
to  clear  and  logical  processes  of  thought  and  yet 
an  instinctive  desire  to  interpret  rather  than  to 
stick  in  the  letter  of  the  reasoning,  in  a  taste  for 
knowledge  and  a  deep  respect  for  the  integrity  of 
the  human  mind.     It  is  citizenship  of  the  world 
of  knowledge,  but  not  ownership  of  it.     Scholars 
are  the  owners  of  its  varied  plots,  in  severalty. 

15.  If  we  recognize  and  accept  these  ideas,  this 
conception  of  the  function  and  the  possibilities  of 
the  college,  there  is  hope  of  a  general  understand- 
ing and  accommodation.     At  present  there  is   a 
fundamental  misunderstanding.      The  teachers  in 
our  colleges  are  men  of  learning  and  conceive  it 
their  duty  to  impart  learning;  but  their  pupils  do 
not  desire  it;  and  the  parents  of  their  pupils  do 
not  desire  it  for  them.    They  desire  something  else 
which   the  teacher   has   little   thought   of  giving, 


44         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

generally  thinks  it  no  part  of  his  function  to  give. 

Many  of  the  parents  of  our  modern  undergradu- 

B  ates  will  frankly  tell  you  that  what  they 

An     acceptance     of  want  for  their  sons  is  not  so  much  what 

these    ideas    would    re-  ,1            .-,•,        ,    .      .,        , 

move    a    serious    mis-  tneJ  Wl11  get  m  the  class-room  as  some- 

understanding    between  thing  else,  which  they  are  at  a  loss  to  de- 

teachers    and    students,  . 

for  nne>  which  they  will  get  from  the  asso- 

ciations of  college  life:  and  many  more 
The  teachers  desire  to 

impart     learning,    and    would  say  the  same  thing  if  they  were 


I  know  what  they 
got  out  of  the  life  of  mean,  and  I  am  free  to  say  that  I  sym- 
the  college.  pathize  with  them.  They  understand 

that  all  that  their  boys  get  in  the  class-room  is  in- 
struction in  certain  definite  bodies  of  knowledge; 
that  all  that  they  are  expected  to  bring  away  from 
their  lectures  and  recitations  is  items  of  learning. 
They  have  consorted  with  college  men,  if  they  are 
not  college  bred  themselves,  and  know  how  very 
soon  items  of  knowledge  slip  away  from  them,  no 
matter  how  faithful  and  diligent  they  may  have 
been  in  accumulating  them  when  they  were  stu- 
dents. They  observe  that  that  part  of  the  college 
acquisition  is  very  soon  lost.  College  graduates 
will  tell  you  without  shame  or  regret,  within  ten 
years  of  their  graduation,  that  they  remember 
practically  nothing  of  what  they  learned  in  the 
class-room  ;  and  yet  in  the  very  same  breath  they 
will  tell  you  that  they  would  not  have  lost  what 
they  did  get  in  college  for  anything  in  the  world  ; 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  45 

and  men  who  did  not  have  the  chance  to  go  to 
college  will  everywhere  be  found  to  envy  them,  per- 
ceiving that  college-bred  men  have  something  which 
they  have  not.  What  have  they  got,  if  learning  is 
to  be  left  out  of  the  reckoning?  They  have  got 
manliness,  certainly,  esprit  de  corps,  the  training 
of  generous  comradeships,  a  notable  development 
of  their  social  faculties  and  of  their  powers  of 
appreciation;  and  they  have  lived  under  the  influ- 
ence of  mental  tasks  of  greater  or  less  difficulty, 
have  got  from  the  class-room  itself,  from  a  quiet 
teacher  here  and  there,  some  intimation,  some 
touch  of  the  spirit  of  learning.  If  they  have  not, 
they  have  got  only  what  could  no  doubt  be  got 
from  association  with  generous,  self-respecting 
young  men  anywhere.  Attendance  on  the  exercises 
of  the  college  was  only  a  means  of  keeping  them 
together  for  four  years,  to  work  out  their  com- 
radeships and  their  mutual  infections. 

16.  I  said  just  now  that  I  sympathized  with 
men  who  said  that  what  they  wanted  for  their  sons 
in  college  was  not  what  they  got  in  the  g 

class-room  so  much  as  what   they  got       The  parents  are  right 
f  ,i       T/»  i  •    ••  /»    ii        in    this,    provided    that 

from   the  life   and  associations   of   the    the  ^e  of  the  college 

place;  but  I  agree  with  them   only   if    includes    the   spirit   of 
what  is  to  be  got  in  the  class-room  is 
nothing  more  than  items  of  knowledge  likely  to  be 
quickly  lost  hold  of.    I  agree  with  them ;  but  I  see 
clearly  what  they  are  blindly  feeling  after.     They 


46         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

should  desire  chiefly  what  their  sons  are  to  get  out 
of  the  life  and  associations  of  the  place;  but  that 
life  and  those  associations  should  be  freighted 
with  things  they  do  not  now  contain.  The  proc- 
esses of  life,  the  contagions  of  association,  are  the 
only  things  that  have  ever  got  any  real  or  perma- 
nent hold  on  men's  minds.  These  are  the  conduct- 
ing media  for  every  effect  we  seek  to  work  on  the 
human  spirit.  The  undergraduate  should  have 
scholars  for  teachers.  They  should  hold  his  atten- 
tion steadily  upon  great  tested  bodies  of  knowledge 
and  should  insist  that  he  make  himself  acquainted 
with  them,  if  only  for  the  nonce.  But  they  will 
give  him  nothing  he  is  likely  to  carry  with  him 
through  life  if  they  stop  with  formal  instruction, 
however  thorough  or  exacting  they  may  make  it. 
Their  permanent  effects  will  be  wrought  upon  his 
spirit.  Their  teaching  will  follow  him  through 
life  only  if  they  reveal  to  him  the  meaning,  the 
significance,  the  essential  validity  of  what  they  are 
about,  the  motives  which  prompt  it,  the  processes 
which  verify  it.  They  will  rule  him,  not  by  what 
they  know  and  inform  him  of,  but  by  the  spirit  of 
the  things  they  expound.  And  that  spirit  they 
cannot  convey  in  any  formal  manner.  They  can 
convey  it  only  atmospherically,  by  making  their 
ideals  tell  in  some  way  upon  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
place. 

17.      How  shall  their  pupils  carry  their  spirit 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  47 

away  with  them,  or  the  spirit  of  the  things  they 
teach,  if  beyond  the  door  of  the  class-room  the 
atmosphere  will  not  contain  it?  College  is  a  place 
of  initiation.  Its  effects  are  atmospheric.  They 
are  wrought  by  impression,  by  association,  by 
emulation.  The  voices  which  do  not  penetrate 
beyond  the  doors  of  the  class-room  are  lost,  are 
ineffectual,  are  void  of  consequence  and  power. 
No  thought  will  obtain  or  live  there  for  the  trans- 
mission of  which  the  prevailing  atmosphere  is  a 
non-conducting  medium.  If  young  gentlemen  get 
from  their  years  at  college  only  manliness,  esprit 
de  corps,  a  release  of  their  social  gifts,  a  training 
in  give  and  take,  a  catholic  taste  in  men,  and  the 
standards  of  true  sportsmen,  they  have  gained 
much,  but  they  have  not  gained  what  a  college 
should  give  them.  It  should  give  them  insight  into 
the  things  of  the  mind  and  of  the  spirit,  a  sense 
of  having  lived  and  formed  their  friendships  amidst 
the  gardens  of  the  mind  where  grows  the  tree  of 
the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  a  consciousness  of 
having  taken  on  them  the  vows  of  true  enlighten- 
ment and  of  having  undergone  the  discipline,  never 
to  be  shaken  off,  of  those  who  seek  wisdom  in 
candor,  with  faithful  labor  and  travail  of  spirit. 

18.  These  things  they  cannot  get  from  the 
class-room  unless  the  spirit  of  the  class-room  is 
the  spirit  of  the  place  as  well  and  of  its  life ;  and 
that  will  never  be  until  the  teacher  comes  out  of 


48         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

the  class-room  and  makes  himself  a  part  of  that 

life.     Contact,  companionship,  familiar  intercourse 

is  the  law  of  life  for  the  mind.     The 

Such  a  reorganization    comradeships    of    undergraduates    will 

C—  ±-"OM>"   never  breed  the  spirit  of  learning.    The 

A.  circle  must  be  widened.    It  must  include 

The    college    teacher  the  older  men,  the  teachers,  the  men  for 
shall    make    himself    a 

part  of  the  life  outside  whom  life  has  grown  more  serious  and 

the  class-room.  to    whom    it    hag    reyealed    more    of    itg 


meanings.  So  long  as  instruction  and  life  do  not 
merge  in  our  colleges,  so  long  as  what  the  under- 
graduates do  and  what  they  are  taught  occupy 
two  separate,  air-tight  compartments  in  their  con- 
sciousness, so  long  will  the  college  be  ineffectual. 

19.    Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  at  which 

I  stand  in  all  that  I  have  been  saying,  some  of  the 

proposals  made  in  our  day  for  the  im- 

Such     proposals     as   provement    of    the    college    seem    very 

that  limiting  the  period    strangely  conceived.     It  has  been  pro- 

of  general  study  to  two  °    J 

years  are  absurd:  a  col-   posed,    for    example,    to    shorten    the 

l:°\"7n*—t    P^iod  of  general  study  in  college  to 

for   a  period  of  four    (say)   two  years,   and  let   the  student 

who  has  gone  the  distance  our  present 

sophomores  have  gone  enter  at  once  upon  his  pro- 

fessional studies  or  receive  his  certificate  of  grad- 

uation.    I  take  it  for  granted  that  those  who  have 

formulated    this    proposal    never    really    knew    a 

sophomore  in  the  flesh.     They  say,  simply,  that 

the  studies  of  our  present  sophomores  are  as  ad- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          49 

vanced  as  the  studies  of  seniors  were  in  the  great 
days  of  our  grandfathers,  and  that  most  of  our 
present  sophomores  are  as  old  as  our  grandfathers 
were  when  they  graduated  from  the  pristine  col- 
lege we  so  often  boast  of;  and  I  dare  say  that 
is  all  true  enough.  But  what  they  do  not  know 
is,  that  our  sophomore  is  at  the  age  of  twenty 
no  more  mature  than  the  sophomore  of  that 
previous  generation  was  at  the  age  of  seventeen 
or  eighteen.  The  sap  of  manhood  is  rising  in  him 
but  it  has  not  yet  reached  his  head.  It  is  not 
what  a  man  is  studying  that  makes  him  a  sopho- 
more or  a  senior :  it  is  the  stage  the  college  process 
has  reached  in  him.  A  college,  the  American  col- 
lege, is  not  a  body  of  studies:  it  is  a  process  of 
development.  It  takes,  if  our  observation  can  be 
trusted,  at  least  four  years  for  the  completion  of 
that  process,  and  all  four  of  those  years  must  be 
college  years.  They  cannot  be  school  years :  they 
cannot  be  combined  with  school  years.  The  school 
process  is  an  entirely  different  one.  The  college 
is  a  process  of  slow  evolution  from  the  schoolboy 
and  the  schoolboy's  mental  attitude  into  the  man 
and  his  entirely  altered  view  of  the  world.  It  can 
be  accomplished  only  in  the  college  environment. 
The  environment  is  of  the  essence  of  the  whole 
effect. 

20.    If  you  wish  to  create  a  college,  therefore, 
and  are  wise,  you  will  seek  to  create  a  life.    We 


50         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

have  allowed  ourselves  to  grow  very  anxious  and 

to  feel  very  helpless  about  college  athletics.    They 

c  play  too  large  a  part  in  the  life  of  the 

The     undue     promi-    undergraduate,  we  say  ;  and  no  doubt 
nence   of   athletics   and     ,,  mi  ^  • 

other  non-academic  ac-    thej  do.     There  are  many  other  things 


tivities  can  easily  be  ob-    wnic^   play    too    jarge    a    part    jn    tnat 

mated  by  bringing  study 

into    competition    with    life,  to  the  exclusion  of  intellectual  in- 

terests and  the  dissipation  of  much 
excellent  energy:  amusements  of  all  kinds,  social 
preoccupations  of  the  most  absorbing  sort,  a 
multitude  of  activities  which  have  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  discipline  and  enlightenment 
of  the  mind.  But  that  is  because  they  are  left 
a  free  field.  Life,  at  college,  is  one  thing,  the 
work  of  the  college  another,  entirely  separate  and 
distinct.  The  life  is  the  field  that  is  left  free  for 
athletics  not  only  but  also  for  every  other  amuse- 
ment and  diversion.  Studies  are  no  part  of  that 
life,  and  there  is  no  competition.  Study  is  the 
work  which  interrupts  the  life,  introduces  an  em- 
barrassing and  inconsistent  element  into  it.  The 
Faculty  has  no  part  in  the  life;  it  organizes  the 
interruption,  the  interference. 

21.  This  is  not  to  say  that  there  are  not  a 
great  many  undergraduates  seriously  interested  in 
study,  or  that  it  is  impossible  or  even  difficult  to 
make  the  majority  of  them,  the  large  majority, 
pass  the  tests  of  the  examinations.  It  is  only 
saying  that  the  studies  do  not  spring  out  of  the 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  51 

life  of  the  place  and  are  hindered  by  it,  must 
resist  its  influences  if  they  would  flourish.  I  have 
no  jealousy  of  athletics :  it  has  put  wholesome  spirit 
into  both  the  physical  and  the  mental  life  of  our 
undergraduates.  There  are  fewer  morbid  boys  in 
the  new  college  which  we  know  than  there  were  in 
the  old  college  which  our  fathers  knew ;  and  fewer 
prigs,  too,  no  doubt.  Athletics  are  indispensable 
to  the  normal  life  of  young  men,  and  are  in  them- 
selves wholesome  and  delightful,  besides.  In  an- 
other atmosphere,  the  atmosphere  of  learning,  they 
could  be  easily  subordinated  and  assimilated.  The 
reason  they  cannot  be  now  is  that  there  is  nothing 
to  assimilate  them,  nothing  by  which  they  can  be 
digested.  They  make  their  own  atmosphere  un- 
molested. There  is  no  direct  competition. 

22.  The  same  thing  may  be  said,  for  it  is  true, 
of  all  the  other  amusements  and  all  the  social 
activities  of  the  little  college  world.  Their  name 
is  legion :  they  are  very  interesting ;  most  of  them 
are  in  themselves  quite  innocent  and  legitimate; 
many  of  them  are  thoroughly  worth  while.  They 
now  engross  the  attention  and  absorb  the  energies 
of  most  of  the  finest,  most  spirited,  most  gifted 
youngsters  in  the  undergraduate  body,  men  fit  to 
be  scholars  and  masters  in  many  fields,  and  for 
whom  these  small  things  are  too  trivial  a  prepara- 
tion. They  would  not  do  so  if  other  things  which 
would  be  certain  to  grip  these  very  men  were  in 


52         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

competition  with  them,  were  known  and  spoken 
of  and  pervasive  in  the  life  of  the  college  outside 
the  class-room;  but  they  are  not.  The  field  is 
clear  for  all  these  little  activities,  as  it  is  clear 
for  athletics.  Athletics  has  no  serious  competitor 
except  these  amusements  and  petty  engrossments; 
they  have  no  serious  competitor  except  athletics. 
The  scholar  is  not  in  the  game.  He  keeps  mod- 
estly to  his  class-room  and  his  study  and  must  be 
looked  up  and  asked  questions  if  you  would  know 
what  he  is  thinking  about.  His  influence  can  be 
set  going  only  by  the  deliberate  effort  of  the 
undergraduate  himself  who  looks  him  up  and  stirs 
him.  He  deplores  athletics  and  all  the  other  ab- 
sorbing and  non-academic  pursuits  which  he  sees 
drawing  the  attention  of  his  pupils  off  from 
study  and  serious  preparation  for  life,  but  he  will 
not  enter  into  competition  with  them.  He  has 
never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing ;  and,  to  tell  the 
truth,  the  life  of  the  place  is  organized  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  it  hardly  possible  for  him  to 
do  so.  He  is  therefore  withdrawn  and  ineffectual. 
23.  It  is  the  duty  of  university  authorities  to 
make  of  the  college  a  society,  of  which  the  teacher 
will  be  as  much,  and  as  naturally,  a  member  as  the 
undergraduate.  When  that  is  done  other  things 
will  fall  into  their  natural  places,  their  natural 
relations.  Young  men  are  capable  of  great  en- 
thusiasms for  older  men  whom  they  have  learned 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          53 

to  know  in  some  human,  unartificial  way,  whose 
quality  they  have  tasted  in  unconstrained  con- 
versation, the  energy  and  beauty  of  whose  char- 
acters and  aims  they  have  learned  to  appreciate 
by  personal  contact;  and  such  enthusiasms  are 
often  among  the  strongest  and  most  lasting  influ- 
ences of  their  lives.  You  will  not  gain  the  affec- 
tion of  your  pupil  by  anything  you  do  for  him, 
impersonally,  in  the  class-room.  You  may  gain 
his  admiration  and  vague  appreciation,  but  he 
will  tie  to  you  only  for  what  you  have  shown  him 
personally  or  given  him  in  intimate  and  friendly 
service. 

£4*.    Certain  I  am  that  it  is  impossible  to  rid  our 
colleges  of  these  things  that  compete  with  study 
and   drive   out   the   spirit   of   learning 
by  the  simple  device  of  legislation,  in       ^he    creation    of    a 

which,  as  Americans,  we  have  so  child-    ePirit  °f  learning,   the 

.,-..,    creation  of  a  society  of 
ish  a  confidence;  or,  at  least,  that,  if    teachers    and  students, 

we  did  succeed  in  driving  them  out,  did    ™nno\  . be.  .   ™ 

through  legislation. 

set  our  house  in  order  and  sweep  and 
garnish  it,  other  equally  distracting  occupants 
would  crowd  in  to  take  their  places.  For  the 
house  would  be  empty.  There  must  be  life  as  well 
as  study.  The  question  is,  not  of  what  are  we  to 
empty  it,  but  with  what  must  we  fill  it?  We  must 
fill  it  with  the  things  of  the  mind  and  of  the 
spirit;  and  that  we  can  do  by  introducing  into  it 
men  for  whom  these  things  are  supremely  inter- 


54         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

esting,  the  main  objects  of  life  and  endeavor, 
teachers  who  will  not  seem  pedagogues  but  friends, 
and  who  can  by  the  gentle  infection  of  friendli- 
ness make  thought  a  general  contagion.  Do  that ; 
create  the  atmosphere  and  the  contacts  of  a  so- 
ciety made  up  of  men  young  and  old,  mature  and 
adolescent,  serious  and  gay,  and  you  will  create 
an  emulation,  a  saturation,  a  vital  union  of  parts 
in  a  common  life,  in  which  all  questions  of  sub- 
ordination and  proportion  will  solve  themselves. 
So  soon  as  the  things  which  now  dissipate  and 
distract  and  dissolve  our  college  life  feel  the 
things  which  should  coordinate  and  regulate  and 
inspire  it  in  direct  contact  with  them,  feel  their 
ardor  and  their  competition,  they  will  fall  into 
their  proper  places,  will  become  pleasures  and  cease 
to  be  occupations,  will  delight  our  undergraduate 
days,  but  not  monopolize  them.  They  are  exag- 
gerated now  because  they  are  separated  and  do  not 
exchange  impulses  with  those  greater  things  of 
whose  presence  they  are  sometimes  hardly  con- 
scious. 

25.  No  doubt  there  are  many  ways  in  which 
this  vital  association  may  be  effected,  but  all  wise 
and  successful  ways  will  have  this  in  common,  that 
they  will  abate  nothing  of  the  freedom  and  self- 
government  which  have  so  quickened  and  purified 
our  colleges  in  these  recent  days  of  change,  will 
have  no  touch  of  school  surveillance  in  them.  You 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING          55 

cannot   force   companionships   upon   undergradu- 
ates, if  you  treat  them  like  men.     You  can  only 
create  the  conditions,  set  up  the  organ- 
ization, which  will  make  them  natural.       Whatever  '  method   is 

The  scholar  should  not  need  a  statute    use^  the  ™™ery  atti- 
tude must  be  avoided. 
behind    him.     The    spirit    of    learning 

should  not  covet  the  support  of  the  spirit  and 
organization  of  the  nursery.  It  will  prevail  of  its 
own  grace  and  power  if  you  will  but  give  it  a 
chance,  a  conducting  medium,  an  air  in  which  it 
can  move  and  breathe  freely  without  effort  or 
self-consciousness.  If  it  cannot,  I,  for  one,  am 
unwilling  to  lend  it  artificial  assistance.  It  must 
take  its  chances  in  the  competition  and  win  on  its 
merits,  under  the  ordinary  rules  of  the  game  of 
life,  where  the  most  interesting  man  attracts  at- 
tention, the  strongest  personality  rules,  the  best 
organized  force  predominates,  the  most  admirable 
thing  wins  allegiance.  We  are  not  seeking  to 
force  a  marriage  between  knowledge  and  pleasure ; 
we  are  simply  trying  to  throw  them  a  great  deal 
together  in  the  confidence  that  they  will  fall  in 
love  with  one  another.  We  are  seeking  to  expose 
the  undergraduate  when  he  is  most  susceptible  to 
the  best  and  most  stimulating  influences  of  the 
university  in  the  hope  and  belief  that  no  sensible 
fellow  fit  for  a  career  can  resist  the  infection. 

26.    My  plea,  then,  is  this:  that  we  now  delib- 
erately set  ourselves  to  make  a  home  for  the  spirit 


56         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

of  learning:  that  we  reorganize  our  colleges  on 
the  lines  of  this  simple  conception,  that  a  college 
is  not  only  a  body  of  studies  but  a  mode  of  asso- 
ciation; that  its  courses  are  only  its  formal  side, 
its  contacts  and  contagions  its  realities.  It  must 
become  a  community  of  scholars  and  pupils, — a 
free  community  but  a  very  real  one,  in  which 
democracy  may  work  its  reasonable  triumphs  of 
accommodation,  its  vital  processes  of  union.  I 
am  not  suggesting  that  young  men  be  dragooned 
into  becoming  scholars  or  tempted  to  become 
pedants,  or  have  any  artificial  compulsion  what- 
ever put  upon  them,  but  only  that  they  be  intro- 
duced into  the  high  society  of  university  ideals, 
be  exposed  to  the  hazards  of  stimulating  friend- 
ships, be  introduced  into  the  easy  comradeships  of 
the  republic  of  letters.  By  this  means  the  class- 
room itself  might  some  day  come  to  seem  a  part 
of  life. 


KNOWLEDGE  VIEWED  IN  RELA- 

TION TO  PROFESSIONAL 

SKILL  x 

JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

1.    I  HAVE  been  insisting,  in  my  two  preceding 
Discourses,  first,  on  the  cultivation  of  the  intellect, 
as  an  end  which  may  reasonably  be  pur- 
sued for  its  own  sake  ;  and  next,  on  the 
nature  of  that  cultivation,  or  what  that        ^  JJJJJJ^j  cul_ 

cultivation  consists  in.     Truth  of  what-    ture  is  useful  in  being 

*•'*••     ii  i  •  t»    M        an    end    in    itself,    and 

ever  kind  is  the  proper  object  of  the    since    it    is    useful   in 

intellect  ;    its    cultivation    then    lies    in    training  men  for  mem- 

bership  in   society   and 
fitting  it  to  apprehend  and  contemplate    for  professional  study, 

truth.     Now  the  intellect  in  its  present    a  Lib?™\  Education  is 

superior  in  utility  to  an 
state,  with  exceptions  which  need  not    education    which    aims 

here  be  specified,  does  not  discern  truth       ™         at   sMl   in   a 


intuitively,  or  as  a  whole.  We  know, 
not  by  a  direct  and  simple  vision,  not  at  a  glance, 
but,  as  it  were,  by  piecemeal  and  accumulation,  by 
a  mental  process,  by  going  round  an  object,  by 
the  comparison,  the  combination,  the  mutual  cor- 

1  The  seventh  of  a  series  of  nine  Discourses  on  Uni- 
versity Teaching  delivered  to  the  Catholics  of  Dublin  in 
1852. 

57 


58         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

rection,  the  continual  adaptation,  of  many  partial 

notions,  by   the   employment,   concentration,   and 

joint  action  of  many  faculties  and  ex- 

OUTLINE    PROPER:  •  n         •     j         o        1  •  J 

ercises  01  mind,     buch  a  union  and  con- 

That  the  idea  of  a  Lib-    cert  of  the  intellectual  powers,  such  an 

eral  Education   (which    enlargement   and  development,   such   a 

has    been   set    forth    in  . 

my  two  preceding  dis-    comprehensiveness,  is  necessarily  a  mat- 

courses)    has   not    been    ter    of   training.      And    again,    such    a 

accepted    by    all    great 

men,  may   be   exempli-    training  is  a  matter  of  rule;  it  is  not 

mefe  aPPlication>  however  exemplary, 
which  introduces  the  mind  to  truth,  nor 
the  reading  many  books,  nor  the  getting  up  many 
subjects,  nor  the  witnessing  many  experiments, 
nor  the  attending  many  lectures.  All  this  is  short 
of  enough ;  a  man  may  have  done  it  all,  yet  be 
lingering  in  the  vestibule  of  knowledge: — he  may 
not  realize  what  his  mouth  utters ;  he  may  not  see 
with  his  mental  eye  what  confronts  him;  he  may 
have  no  grasp  of  things  as  they  are;  or  at  least 
he  may  have  no  power  at  all  of  advancing  one  step 
forward  of  himself,  in  consequence  of  what  he  has 
already  acquired,  no  power  of  discriminating  be- 
tween truth  and  falsehood,  of  sifting  out  the 
grains  of  truth  from  the  mass,  of  arranging 
things  according  to  their  real  value,  and,  if  I  may 
use  the  phrase,  of  building  up  ideas.  Such  a 
power  is  the  result  of  a  scientific  formation  of 
mind;  it  is  an  acquired  faculty  of  judgment,  of 
clear-sightedness,  of  sagacity,  of  wisdom,  of  phil- 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  59 

osophical  reach  of  mind,  and  of  intellectual  self- 
possession  and  repose, — qualities  which  do  not 
come  of  mere  acquirement.  The  bodily  eye,  the 
organ  for  apprehending  material  objects,  is  pro- 
vided by  nature ;  the  eye  of  the  mind,  of  which  the 
object  is  truth,  is  the  work  of  discipline  and  habit. 

2.  This  process  of  training,  by  which  the  intel- 
lect, instead  of  being  formed  or  sacrificed  to  some 
particular    or    accidental    purpose,    some    specific 
trade  or  profession,  or  study  or  science,  is  disci- 
plined for  its  own  sake,  for  the  perception  of  its 
own  proper  object,  and  for  its  own  highest  culture, 
is  called  Liberal  Education;  and  though  there  is 
no  one  in  whom  it  is  carried  as  far  as  is  conceiva- 
ble, or  whose  intellect  would  be  a  pattern  of  what 
intellects  should  be  made,  yet  there  is  scarcely  any 
one  but  may  gain  an  idea  of  what  real  training  is, 
and  at  least  look  towards   it,  and  make  its  true 
scope  and  result,  not  something  else,  his  standard 
of  excellence ;  and  numbers  there  are  who  may  sub- 
mit themselves  to  it,  and  secure  it  to  themselves 
in    good   measure.     And    to    set    forth   the  right 
standard,  and  to  train  according  to  it,  and  to  help 
forward  all  students  towards  it  according  to  their 
various  capacities,  this  I  conceive  to  be  the  busi- 
ness of  a  University. 

3.  Now  this  is  what  some  great  men  are  very 
slow  to  allow;  they  insist  that  Education  should 
be   confined   to   some  particular   and  narrow   end, 


60         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

and  should  issue  in  some  definite  work,  which  can 
be  weighed  and  measured.  They  argue  as  if  every 
thing,  as  well  as  every  person,  had  its  price ;  and 
that  where  there  has  been  a  great  outlay  they 
have  a  right  to  expect  a  return  in  kind.  This  they 
call  making  Education  and  Instruction  "  useful," 
and  "  Utility  "  becomes  their  watchword.  With  a 
fundamental  principle  of  this  nature,  they  very 
naturally  go  on  to  ask,  what  there  is  to  show  for 
the  expense  of  a  University ;  what  is  the  real  worth 
in  the  market  of  the  article  called  "  a  Liberal 
Education,"  on  the  supposition  that  it  does  not 
teach  us  definitely  how  to  advance  our  manufac- 
tures, or  to  improve  our  lands,  or  to  better  our 
civil  economy;  or  again,  if  it  does  not  at  once 
make  this  man  a  lawyer,  that  an  engineer,  and 
that  a  surgeon ;  or  at  least  if  it  does  not  lead  to 
discoveries  in  chemistry,  astronomy,  geology,  mag- 
netism, and  science  of  every  kind. 

4.    This  question,  as  might  have  been  expected, 

has  been  keenly  debated  in  the  present  age,  and 

A  formed   one  main   subject   of  the  con- 

Certain      Edinburgh    troversy,  to  which  I  referred  in  the  In- 
Reviewers,  advocates  of  i      ,.  i  ^. 

education    for    Utility,    troduction  to  the  present  Discourses,  as 

an^  having  been  sustained  in  the  first  decade 

of  this  century  by  a  celebrated  Northern  Review  * 

on  the  one  hand,  and  defenders  of  the  University 

of  Oxford  on  the  other.     Hardly  had  the  authori- 

1  The  Edinburgh  Review. 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  61 

ties  of  that  ancient  seat  of  learning,  waking  from 
their  long  neglect,  set  on  foot  a  plan  for  the  edu- 
cation of  the  youth  committed  to  them,  than  the 
representatives  of  science  and  literature  in  the 
city,  which  has  sometimes  been  called  the  Northern 
Athens,  remonstrated,  with  their  gravest  argu- 
ments and  their  most  brilliant  satire,  against  the 
direction  and  shape  which  the  reform  was  taking. 
Nothing  would  content  them,  but  that  the  Uni- 
versity should  be  set  to  rights  on  the  basis  of  the 
philosophy  of  Utility ;  a  philosophy,  as  they  seem 
to  have  thought,  which  needed  but  to  be  pro- 
claimed in  order  to  be  embraced.  In  truth,  they 
were  little  aware  of  the  depth  and  force  of  the 
principles  on  which  the  academical  authorities 
were  proceeding,  and,  this  being  so,  it  was  not  to 
be  expected  that  they  would  be  allowed  to  walk  at 
leisure  over  the  field  of  controversy  which  they 
had  selected.  Accordingly  they  were  encountered 
in  behalf  of  the  University  by  two  men  of  great 
name  and  influence  in  their  day,  of  very  different 
minds,  but  united,  as  by  Collegiate  ties,  so  in  the 
clear-sighted  and  large  view  which  they  took  of 
the  whole  subject  of  Liberal  Education;  and  the 
defense  thus  provided  for  the  Oxford  studies  has 
kept  its  ground  to  this  day. 

5.  Let  me  be  allowed  to  devote  a  few  words  to 
the  memory  of  distinguished  persons,  under  the 
shadow  of  whose  name  I  once  lived,  and  by  whose 


62         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

doctrine  I  am  now  profiting.     In  the  heart  of  Ox- 
ford there  is  a  small  plot  of  ground,  hemmed  in 
B  by    public    thoroughfares,    which    has 

Two  defenders  of  Ox-  been  the  possession  and  the  home  of  one 
Society  for  above  five  hundred  years. 
In  the  old  time  of  Boniface  the  Eighth  and  John 
the  Twenty-second,  in  the  age  of  Scotus  and 
Occam  and  Dante,  before  Wiclif  or  Huss  had  kin- 
dled those  miserable  fires  which  are  still  raging  to 
the  ruin  of  the  highest  interest  of  man,  an  unfor- 
tunate King  of  England,  Edward  the  Second, 
flying  from  the  field  of  Bannockburn,  is  said  to 
have  made  a  vow  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  to  found 
a  religious  house  in  her  honor,  if  he  got  back  in 
safety.  Prompted  and  aided  by  his  Almoner,  he 
decided  on  placing  this  house  in  the  city  of  Alfred ; 
and  the  Image  of  our  Lady,  which  is  opposite  its 
entrance-gate,  is  to  this  day  the  token  of  the  vow 
and  its  fulfilment.  King  and  Almoner  have  long 
been  in  the  dust,  and  strangers  have  entered  into 
their  inheritance,  and  their  creed  has  been  for- 
gotten, and  their  holy  rites  disowned;  but  day 
by  day  a  memento  is  still  made  in  the  holy  Sacri- 
fice by  at  least  one  Catholic  Priest,  once  a  mem- 
ber of  that  College,  for  the  souls  of  those  Catholic 
benefactors  who  fed  him  there  for  so  many  years. 
The  visitor,  whose  curiosity  has  been  excited  by 
its  present  fame,  gazes  perhaps  with  something 
of  disappointment  on  a  collection  of  buildings 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  63 

which  have  with  them  so  few  of  the  circumstances 
of  dignity  or  wealth.  Broad  quadrangles,  high 
halls  and  chambers,  ornamented  cloisters,  stately 
walks,  or  umbrageous  gardens,  a  throng  of  stu- 
dents, ample  revenues,  or  a  glorious  history,  none 
of  these  things  were  the  portion  of  that  old  Cath- 
olic foundation ;  nothing  in  short  which  to  the 
common  eye  sixty  years  ago  would  have  given 
tokens  of  what  it  was  to  be.  But  it  had  at  that 
time  a  spirit  working  within  it,  which  enabled  its 
inmates  to  do,  amid  its  seeming  insignificance, 
what  no  other  body  in  the  place  could  equal ;  not 
a  very  abstruse  gift  or  extraordinary  boast,  but 
a  rare  one,  the  honest  purpose  to  administer  the 
trust  committed  to  them  in  such  a  way  as  their 
conscience  pointed  out  as  best.  So,  whereas  the 
Colleges  of  Oxford  are  self-electing  bodies,  the 
fellows  in  each  perpetually  filling  up  for  themselves 
the  vacancies  which  occur  in  their  number,  the 
members  of  this  foundation  determined,  at  a  time 
when,  either  from  evil  custom  or  from  ancient 
statute,  such  a  thing  was  not  known  elsewhere,  to 
throw  open  their  fellowships  to  the  competition 
of  all  comers,  and,  in  the  choice  of  associates 
henceforth,  to  cast  to  the  winds  every  personal 
motive  and  feeling,  family  connection,  and  friend- 
ship, and  patronage,  and  political  interest,  and 
local  claim,  and  prejudice,  and  party  jealousy, 
and  to  elect  solely  on  public  and  patriotic  grounds. 


64         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

Nay,  with  a  remarkable  independence  of  mind, 
they  resolved  that  even  the  table  of  honors, 
awarded  to  literary  merit  by  the  University  in 
its  new  system  of  examination  for  degrees,  should 
not  fetter  their  judgment  as  electors;  but  that  at 
all  risks,  and  whatever  criticism  it  might  cause, 
and  whatever  odium  they  might  incur,  they  would 
select  the  men,  whoever  they  were,  to  be  children 
of  their  Founder,  whom  they  thought  in  their 
consciences  to  be  most  likely  from  their  intellectual 
and  moral  qualities  to  please  him,  if  (as  they  ex- 
pressed it)  he  were  still  upon  earth,  most  likely 
to  do  honor  to  his  College,  most  likely  to 
promote  the  objects  which  they  believed  he  had 
at  heart.  Such  persons  did  not  promise  to  be 
the  disciples  of  a  low  Utilitarianism;  and  conse- 
quently, as  their  collegiate  reform  synchronized 
with  that  reform  of  the  Academic  body,  in  which 
they  bore  a  principal  part,  it  was  not  unnatural 
that,  when  the  storm  broke  upon  the  University 
from  the  North,  their  Alma  Mater,  whom  they 
loved,  should  have  found  her  first  defenders  within 
the  walls  of  that  small  College,  which  had  first 
put  itself  into  a  condition  to  be  her  champion. 

6.  These  defenders,  I  have  said,  were  two,  of 
whom  the  most  distinguished  was  the  late  Dr. 
Copleston,  then  a  Fellow  of  the  College,  suc- 
cessively its  Provost,  and  Protestant  Bishop  of 
Llandaff.  In  that  Society,  which  owes  so  much 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  65 

to  him,  his  name  lives,  and  ever  will  live,  for  the 
distinction  which  his  talents  bestowed  on  it,  for 
the  academical  importance  to  which  he 

raised  it,  for  the  generosity  of  spirit,  !• 

,,      ,.,         ,..        „         , .  j  XL    i_l_j          Dr'  Copleston,  and 

the  liberality  of  sentiment,  and  the  kind-  2. 

ness   of  heart,  with  which  he  adorned       *'-  Damson,  who  re- 

plied   to  Locke   as  well 
it,  and  which  even  those  who  had  least    as  to  the  Reviewers. 

sympathy  with  some  aspects  of  his 
mind  and  character  could  not  but  admire  and 
love.  Men  come  to  their  meridian  at  various 
periods  of  their  lives ;  the  last  years  of  the  eminent 
person  I  am  speaking  of  were  given  to  duties 
which,  I  am  told,  have  been  the  means  of  endearing 
him  to  numbers,  but  which  afforded  no  scope  for 
that  peculiar  vigor  and  keenness  of  mind  which 
enabled  him,  when  a  young  man,  single-handed, 
with  easy  gallantry,  to  encounter  and  overthrow 
the  charge  of  three  giants  of  the  North  combined 
against  him.  I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that, 
in  the  progress  of  the  controversy,  the  most  sci- 
entific, the  most  critical,  and  the  most  witty,  of 
that  literary  company,  all  of  them  now,  as  he 
himself,  removed  from  this  visible  scene,  Professor 
Playfair,  Lord  Jeffrey,  and  the  Rev.  Sydney 
Smith,  threw  together  their  several  efforts  into 
one  article  of  their  Review,  in  order  to  crush  and 
pound  to  dust  the  audacious  controvertist  who  had 
come  out  against  them  in  defense  of  his  own  In- 
stitutions. To  have  even  contended  with  such 


66         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

men  was  a  sufficient  voucher  for  his  ability,  even 
before  we  open  his  pamphlets,  and  have  actual 
evidence  of  the  good  sense,  the  spirit,  the  scholar- 
like  taste,  and  the  purity  of  style,  by  which  they 
are  distinguished. 

7.  He  was  supported  in  the  controversy,  on  the 
same  general  principles,  but  with  more  of  method 
and  distinctness,  and,  I  will  add,  with  greater 
force  and  beauty  and  perfection,  both  of  thought 
and  of  language,  by  the  other  distinguished 
writer,  to  whom  I  have  already  referred,  Mr. 
Davison ;  who,  though  not  so  well  known  to  the 
world  in  his  day,  has  left  more  behind  him  than 
the  Provost  of  Oriel,  to  make  his  name  remem- 
bered by  posterity.  This  thoughtful  man,  who 
was  the  admired  and  intimate  friend  of  a  very 
remarkable  person,  whom,  whether  he  wish  it  or 
not,  numbers  revere  and  love  as  the  first  author 
of  the  subsequent  movement  in  the  Protestant 
Church  towards  Catholicism,1  this  grave  and  philo- 
sophical writer,  whose  works  I  can  never  look 
into  without  sighing  that  such  a  man  was  lost  to 
the  Catholic  Church,  as  Dr.  Butler  before  him,  by 
some  early  bias  or  some  fault  of  self-education — 
he,  in  a  review  of  a  work  by  Mr.  Edgeworth  on 
Professional  Education,  which  attracted  a  good 


1  Mr.  Keble,  Vicar  of  Hursley,  late  Fellow  of  Oriel,  and 
Professor  of  Poetry  in  the  University  of  Oxford.  [Author's 
note.] 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  67 

deal  of  attention  in  its  day,  goes  leisurely  over 
the  same  ground,  which  had  already  been  rapidly 
traversed  by  Dr.  Copleston,  and,  though  pro- 
fessedly employed  upon  Mr.  Edgeworth,  is  really 
replying  to  the  northern  critic  who  had  brought 
that  writer's  work  into  notice,  and  to  a  far  greater 
author  than  either  of  tliem,  who  in  a  past  age  had 
argued  on  the  same  side. 

8.  The  author  to  whom  I  allude  is  no  other 
than  Locke.  That  celebrated  philosopher  has  pre- 
ceded the  Edinburgh  Reviewers  in  con- 

demning; the  ordinary  subiects  in  which  **• 

We  may  easily   com- 

boys   are  instructed  at   school,  on   the    bat  the  theory  of  Util- 


ground   that   they   are   not  needed  by 

them  in  after  life  ;  and  before  quoting  lectual  culture,  in  being 

i     ,   i  •      !•     •    i       T               «i  •      ,1  its  own  end.  is  useful. 

what  his  disciples  have  said  in  the  pres-  f0r 

ent  century,  I  will  refer  to  a  few  pas-  A. 

Locke's    argument   in 

sages  01  the  master.         'Tis  matter  of  favor  of  a  useful  edu- 

astonishment,"  he  says  in  his  work  on  cation   rests   upon   the 

9                                        ^  definition   of  useful   as 

Education,  "  that  men  of  quality  and  that  which  has  a  direct 


parts  should  suffer  themselves  to  be  so   ~  ** 


far  misled  by  custom  and  implicit  faith. 
Reason,  if  consulted  with,  would  advise,  that  their 
children's  time  should  be  spent  in  acquiring  what 
might  be  useful  to  them,  when  they  come  to  be  men, 
rather  than  that  their  heads  should  be  stuffed  with 
a  deal  of  trash,  a  great  part  whereof  they  usually 
never  do  ('tis  certain  they  never  need  to)  think  on 
again  as  long  as  they  live;  and  so  much  of  it  as 


68         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

does    stick    by    them    they    are    only    the    worse 
for." 

9.  And  so  again,  speaking  of  verse-making,  he 
says,  "  I  know  not  what  reason  a  father  can  have 
to  wish  his  son  a  poet,  who  does  not  desire  him 
to  bid  defiance  to  all  other  callings  and  business; 
which  is  not  yet  the  worst  of  the  case ;  for,  if  he 
proves  a  successful  rhymer  and  gets  once  the  repu- 
tation of  a  wit,  I  desire  it  to  be  considered,  what 
company  and  places  he  is  likely  to  spend  his  time 
in,  nay,  and  estate  too ;  for  it  is  very  seldom  seen 
that  any  one  discovers  mines  of  gold  or  silver  in 
Parnassus.     'Tis    a    pleasant    air,    but    a    barren 
soil." 

10.  In    another    passage    he    distinctly    limits 
utility  in  education  to  its  bearing  on  the  future 
profession  or  trade  of  the  pupil,  that  is,  he  scorns 
the  idea  of  any  education  of  the  intellect,  simply 
as  such.     "  Can  there  be  any  thing  more  ridicu- 
lous," he  asks,  "  than  that  a  father  should  waste 
his  own  money,  and  his  son's  time,  in  setting  him 
to  learn  the  Roman  language  when  at  the  same 
time  he  designs  him  -for  a  trade,  wherein  he,  having 
no  use   of  Latin,   fails   not  to   forget   that   little 
which  he  brought  from  school,  and  which  'tis  ten 
to   one   he   abhors   for   the   ill-usage   it   procured 
him?     Could  it  be  believed,  unless  we  have  every 
where   amongst  us    examples   of   it,   that   a   child 
should  be  forced  to  learn  the  rudiments  of  a  Ian- 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  69 

guage,  which  he  is  never  to  use  in  the  course  of 
life  that  he  is  designed  to,  and  neglect  all  the 
while  the  writing  a  good  hand,  and  casting  ac- 
counts, which  are  of  great  advantage  in  all  condi- 
tions of  life,  and  to  most  trades  indispensably 
necessary? "  Nothing  of  course  can  be  more 
absurd  than  to  neglect  in  education  those  matters 
which  are  necessary  for  a  boy's  future  calling ;  but 
the  tone  of  Locke's  remarks  evidently  implies  more 
than  this,  and  is  condemnatory  of  any  teaching 
which  tends  to  the  general  cultivation  of  the  mind. 

11.  Now  to  turn  to  his  modern  dis-  B 

ciples.     The  study  of  the  Classics  had       The  argument  of  the 
,  iiii-        *  11      *"k    *      i      i        Reviewers     rests     upon 

been  made  the  basis  of  the  Oxford  edu-    the  definition  of  useful 

cation,   in   the    reforms   which   I    have   as  that  ™hich  serves  the 

community  at  large  by 
spoken    of,    and    the    Edinburgh    Re-    advancing  the   sum   of 

viewers  protested,  after  the  manner  of  know^dff^ 
Locke,  that  no  good  could  come  of  a  system  which 
was  not  based  upon  the  principle  of  Utility. 

12.  "  Classical  Literature,"  they  said,  "  is  the 
great   object   at   Oxford.      Many   minds,   so   em- 
ployed, have  produced  many  works  and  much  fame 
in   that  department;  but  if  all  liberal  arts   and 
sciences,  useful  to  human  life,   had  been   taught 
there,  if  some  had  dedicated  themselves  to  chem- 
istry, some  to  mathematics,  some  to  experimental 
philosophy,  and  if  every  attainment  had  been  hon- 
ored in  the  mixed  ratio  of  its  difficulty  and  utility, 
the  system  of  such  a  University  would  have  been 


70         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

much  more  valuable,  but  the  splendor  of  its  name 
some  thing  less." 

13.  Utility  may  be  made  the  end  of  education, 
in  two  respects:  either  as  regards  the  individual 
educated,  or  the  community  at  large.     In  which 
light  do  these  writers  regard  it?  in  the  latter.     So 
far  they  differ  from  Locke,  for  they  consider  the 
advancement  of  science  as  the  supreme  and  real 
end  of  a  University.     This  is  brought  into  view 
in  the  sentences  which  follow. 

14.  "  When  a  University  has  been  doing  use- 
less things  for  a  long  time,  it  appears  at  first  de- 
grading to  them  to  be  useful.    A  set  of  Lectures 
on   Political   Economy   would   be   discouraged    in 
Oxford,    probably    despised,    probably    not    per- 
mitted.   To  discuss  the  enclosure  of  commons,  and 
to  dwell  upon  imports   and  exports,  to   come  so 
near  to  common  life,  would  seem  to  be  undignified 
and  contemptible.     In  the  same  manner,  the  Parr 
or  the  Bentley  *  of  the  day  would  be  scandalized, 
in  a   University,  to  be  put  on  a  level  with   the 
discoverer  of  a  neutral  salt;  and  yet,  what  other 
measure  is  there  of  dignity  in  intellectual  labor  but 
usefulness?     And  what  ought  the  term  University 
to  mean,  but  a  place  where  every  science  is  taught 
which  is  liberal,  and  at  the  same  time  useful  to 


Samuel  Parr  (1747-1825),  a  prominent  English  scholar; 
Richard  Bentley  (1662-1742),  the  distinguished  English 
Classical  scholar, 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  71 

mankind?  Nothing  would  so  much  tend  to  bring 
classical  literature  within  proper  bounds  as  a 
steady  and  invariable  appeal  to  utility  in  our  ap- 
preciation of  all  human  knowledge.  .  .  .  Look- 
ing always  to  real  utility  as  our  guide,  we  should 
see,  with  equal  pleasure,  a  studious  and  inquisitive 
mind  arranging  the  productions  of  nature,  in- 
vestigating the  qualities  of  bodies,  or  mastering 
the  difficulties  of  the  learned  languages.  We 
should  not  care  whether  he  was  chemist,  naturalist, 
or  scholar,  because  we  know  it  to  be  as  necessary 
that  matter  should  be  studied  and  subdued  to  the 
use  of  man,  as  that  taste  should  be  gratified,  and 
imagination  inflamed." 

15.  Such  then  is  the  enunciation,  as  far  as 
words  go,  of  the  theory  of  Utility  in  Education; 
and  both  on  its  own  account,  and  for 

the    sake    of   the   able   men   who    have  _c- 

.        .  .  Both   of   these   mews 

advocated    it,    it   has    a    claim    on    the    may  be  met  by  saying 

attention  of  those   whose   principles  I   ^S^SS 

am  here  representing.     Certainly  it  is    what  has  an  end  in  it- 
.,  tl  .          .      self  has  its  use  in  itself 

specious    to    contend    that    nothing    is    0?/0 

worth  pursuing  but  what  is  useful; 
and  that  life  is  not  long  enough  to  expend  upon 
interesting,  or  curious,  or  brilliant  trifles.  Nay, 
in  one  sense,  I  will  grant  it  is  more  than  specious, 
it  is  true;  but,  if  so,  how  do  I  propose  directly 
to  meet  the  objection?  Why,  Gentlemen,  I  have 
really  met  it  already,  viz.,  in  laying  down,  that 


72         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

intellectual  culture  is  its  own  end;  for  what  has 
its  end  in  itself,  has  its  use  in  itself  also.  I  say, 
if  a  Liberal  Education  consists  in  the  culture  of 
the  intellect,  and  if  that  culture  be  in  itself  a 
good,  here,  without  going  further,  is  an  answer 
to  Locke's  question;  for  if  a  healthy  body  is  a 
good  in  itself,  why  is  not  a  healthy  intellect?  and 
if  a  College  of  Physicians  is  a  useful  institution, 
because  it  contemplates  bodily  health,  why  is  not 
an  Academical  Body,  though  it  were  simply  and 
solely  engaged  in  imparting  vigor  and  beauty 
and  grasp  to  the  intellectual  portion  of  our  na- 
ture? And  the  Reviewers  I  am  quoting  seem  to 
allow  this  in  their  better  moments,  in  a  passage 
which,  putting  aside  the  question  of  its  justice  in 
fact,  is  sound  and  true  in  the  principles  to  which 
it  appeals: — 

16.  "  The  present  state  of  classical  education," 
they  say,  "  cultivates  the  imagination  a  great  deal 
too  much,  and  other  habits  of  mind  a  great  deal 
too  little,  and  trains  up  many  young  men  in  a 
style  of  elegant  imbecility,  utterly  unworthy  of  the 
talents  with  which  nature  has  endowed  them.  .  .  . 
The  matter  of  fact  is,  that  a  classical  scholar  of 
twenty-three  or  twenty-four  is  a  man  principally 
conversant  with  works  of  imagination.  His  feel- 
ings are  quick,  his  fancy  lively,  and  his  taste  good. 
Talents  for  speculation  and  original  inquiry  he 
has  none,  nor  has  he  formed  the  invaluable  habit 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  73 

of  pushing  things  up  to  their  first  principles,  or 
of  collecting  dry  and  unamusing  facts  as  the 
materials  for  reasoning.  All  the  solid  and  mas- 
culine parts  of  his  understanding  are  left  wholly 
without  cultivation;  he  hates  the  pain  of  thinking, 
and  suspects  every  man  whose  boldness  and  orig- 
inality call  upon  him  to  defend  his  opinions  and 
prove  his  assertions." 

17.  Now,  I  am  not  at  present  concerned  with 
the  specific  question  of  classical  education;  else,  I 
might  reasonably  question  the  justice  of  calling 
an  intellectual  discipline,  which  embraces  the  study 
of  Aristotle,  Thucydides,  and  Tacitus,  which  in- 
volves Scholarship  and  Antiquities,  imaginative; 
still  so  far  I  readily  grant,  that  the  cultivation 
of  the  "  understanding,"  of  a  "  talent  for  specu- 
lation and  original  inquiry,"  and  of  "  the  habit  of 
pushing  things  up  to  their  first  principles,"  is  a 
principal  portion  of  a  good  or  liberal  education. 
If  then  the  Reviewers  consider  such  cultivation 
the  characteristic  of  a  useful  education,  as  they 
seem  to  do  in  the  foregoing  passage,  it  follows, 
that  what  they  mean  by  "  useful  "  is  just  what  I 
mean  by  "  good  "  or  "  liberal :  "  and  Locke's  ques- 
tion becomes  a  verbal  one.  Whether  youths  are 
to  be  taught  Latin  or  verse-making  will  depend  on 
the  fact,  whether  these  studies  tend  to  mental  cul- 
ture; but,  however  this  is  determined,  so  far  is 
clear,  that  in  that  mental  culture  consists  what  I 


74         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

have  called  a  liberal  or  non-professional,  and  what 
the  Reviewers  call  a  useful  education. 

18.    This  is  the  obvious  answer  which  may  be 
made  to  those  who  urge  upon  us  the  claims   of 
Utility  in  our  plans  of  Education ;  but 

Taking    "useful"    to  I    am    not    going    to    leave    the    subject 
ean,    not    "  what    is  here :  I  mean  to  take  a  wider  view  of  it. 
good"  but  "what  tends  ,  „  ,  , 
to  good,"  we  are  again  Let  us  take  "  useful,"  as  Locke  takes 
drawn  to  the  conclusion  jt   jn  its  proper  an(j  popular  sense,  and 
that   a   Liberal   Educa- 
tion is  in  a  high  degree  then   we    enter   upon    a   large   field   of 
useful,  for^  thought,  to  which  I  cannot  do  justice 

What  is  good  is  al-   in  one  Discourse,  though  to-day's  is  all 
ways  useful   since  good    th  ^  t  j  can      iye  t      jt       j 

is  reproductive  of  good.  J ' 

let  us  take  "  useful "  to  mean  not  what 

is  simply  good,  but  what  tends  to  good,  or  is  the 
instrument  of  good ;  and  in  this  sense  also,  Gentle- 
men, I  will  show  you  how  a  liberal  education  is 
truly  and  fully  a  useful,  though  it  be  not  a  pro- 
fessional, education.  "  Good  "  indeed  means  one 
thing,  and  "  useful  "  means  another ;  but  I  lay  it 
down  as  a  principle,  which  will  save  us  a  great 
deal  of  anxiety,  that,  though  the  useful  is  not 
always  good,  the  good  is  always  useful.  Good  is 
not  only  good,  but  reproductive  of  good;  this 
is  one  of  its  attributes ;  nothing  is  excellent,  beau- 
tiful, perfect,  desirable  for  its  own  sake,  but  it 
overflows,  and  spreads  the  likeness  of  itself  all 
around  it.  Good  is  prolific;  it  is  not  only  good 
to  the  eye,  but  to  the  taste ;  it  not  only  attracts 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  75 

us,  but  it  communicates  itself;  it  excites  first  our 
admiration  and  love,  then  our  desire  and  our 
gratitude,  and  that,  in  proportion  to  its  intense- 
ness  and  fullness  in  particular  instances.  A  great 
good  will  impart  great  good.  If  then  the  in- 
tellect is  so  excellent  a  portion  of  us,  and  its 
cultivation  so  excellent,  it  is  not  only  beautiful, 
perfect,  admirable,  and  noble  in  itself,  but  in  a 
true  and  high  sense  it  must  be  useful  to  the 
possessor  and  to  all  around  him;  not  useful  in 
any  low,  mechanical,  mercantile  sense,  but  as  dif- 
fusing good,  or  as  a  blessing,  or  a  gift,  or  power, 
or  a  treasure,  first  to  the  owner,  then  through 
him  to  the  world.  I  say  then,  if  a  liberal  edu- 
cation be  good,  it  must  necessarily  be  useful  too. 

19.  You  will  see  what  I  mean  by  the  parallel  of 
bodily  health.  Health  is  a  good  in  itself,  though 
nothing  came  of  it,  and  is  especially 

worth    seeking    and    cherishing;    yet, 

J.  The      usefulness     of 

after  all,  the  blessings  which  attend  its    what  is  good  may  be 


presence  are  so  great,  while  they  are 
so  close  to  it  and  so  redound  back  upon 
it  and  encircle  it,  that  we  never  think  of  it  except 
as  useful  as  well  as  good,  and  praise  and  prize 
it  for  what  it  does,  as  well  as  for  what  it  is, 
though  at  the  same  time  we  cannot  point  out  any 
definite  and  distinct  work  or  production  which  it 
can  be  said  to  effect.  And  so  as  regards  intel- 
lectual culture,  I  am  far  from  denying  utility 


76         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

in  this  large  sense  as  the  end  of  Education,  when 
I  lay  it  down,  that  the  culture  of  the  intellect 
is  a  good  in  itself  and  its  own  end;  I  do  not 
exclude  from  the  idea  of  intellectual  culture  what 
it  cannot  but  be,  from  the  very  nature  of 
things ;  I  only  deny  that  we  must  be  able  to  point 
out,  before  we  have  any  right  to  call  it  useful, 
some  art,  or  business,  or  profession,  or  trade,  or 
work,  as  resulting  from  it,  and  as  its  real  and 
complete  end.  The  parallel  is  exact : — As  the  body 
may  be  sacrificed  to  some  manual  or  other  toil, 
whether  moderate  or  oppressive,  so  may  the  intel- 
lect be  devoted  to  some  specific  profession;  and 
I  do  not  call  this  the  culture  of  the  intellect. 
Again,  as  some  member  or  organ  of  the  body  may 
be  inordinately  used  and  developed,  so  may  mem- 
ory, or  imagination,  or  the  reasoning  faculty ;  and 
this  again  is  not  intellectual  culture.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  the  body  may  be  tended,  cherished,  and 
exercised  with  a  simple  view  to  its  general  health, 
so  may  the  intellect  also  be  generally  exercised  in 
order  to  its  perfect  state ;  and  this  is  its  cultivation. 
20.  Again,  as  health  ought  to  precede  labor 
of  the  body,  and  as  a  man  in  health  can  do  what 
an  unhealthy  man  cannot  do,  and  as  of  this  health 
the  properties  are  strength,  energy,  agility,  grace- 
ful carriage  and  action,  manual  dexterity,  and 
endurance  of  fatigue,  so  in  like  manner  general 
culture  of  mind  is  the  best  aid  to  professional 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  77 

and  scientific  study,  and  educated  men  can  do  what 
illiterate  cannot;  and  the  man  who  has  learned  to 
think  and  to  reason  and  to  compare  and  to  dis- 
criminate and  to  analyze,  who  has  refined  his 
taste,  and  formed  his  judgment,  and  sharpened  his 
mental  vision,  will  not  indeed  at  once  be  a  lawyer, 
or  a  pleader,  or  an  orator,  or  a  statesman,  or 
a  physician,  or  a  good  landlord,  or  a  man  of 
business,  or  a  soldier,  or  an  engineer,  or  a 
chemist,  or  a  geologist,  or  an  antiquarian,  but  he 
will  be  placed  in  that  state  of  intellect  in  which 
he  can  take  up  any  one  of  the  sciences  or  callings 
I  have  referred  to,  or  any  other  for  which 
he  has  a  taste  or  special  talent,  with  an  ease, 
a  grace,  a  versatility,  and  a  success,  to  which 
another  is  a  stranger.  In  this  sense  then,  and  as 
yet  I  have  said  but  a  very  few  words  on  a  large 
subject,  mental  culture  is  emphatically  useful. 

21.    If  then   I   am   arguing,   and   shall  argue, 
against  Professional  or  Scientific  knowledge  as  the 
sufficient  end  of  a  University  Education, 
let    me    not    be    supposed,    Gentlemen,       A  Liberal  Education 

to  be  disrespectful  towards  particular   8erves     the     following 

uses : 
studies,  or  arts,  or  vocations,  and  those 

who  are  engaged  in  them.  In  saying  that  Law  or 
Medicine  is  not  the  end  of  a  University  course,  I 
do  not  mean  to  imply  that  the  University  does  not 
teach  Law  or  Medicine.  What  indeed  can  it  teach 
at  all,  if  it  does  not  teach  something  particular? 


78         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

It  teaches  all  knowledge  by  teaching  all  branches 
of  knowledge,  and  in  no  other  way.  I  do  but  say 
that  there  will  be  this  distinction  as  regards  a 
Professor  of  Law,  or  of  Medicine,  or  of  Geology, 
or  of  Political  Economy,  in  a  University  and  out 
of  it,  that  out  of  a  University  he  is  in  danger  of 
being  absorbed  and  narrowed  by  his  pursuit,  and 
of  giving  Lectures  which  are  the  Lectures  of 
nothing  more  than  a  lawyer,  physician,  geologist, 
or  political  economist;  whereas  in  a  University  he 
will  just  know  where  he  and  his  science  stand,  he 
has  come  to  it,  as  it  were,  from  a  height,  he  has 
taken  a  survey  of  all  knowledge,  he  is  kept  from 
extravagance  by  the  very  rivalry  of  other  studies, 
he  has  gained  from  them  a  special  illumination  and 
largeness  of  mind  and  freedom  and  self-possession, 
and  he  treats  his  own  in  consequence  with  a 
philosophy  and  a  resource,  which  belongs  not 
to  the  study  itself,  but  to  his  liberal  education. 

22.    This  then  is  how  I  should  solve  the  fallacy, 
for  so  I  must  call  it,  by  which  Locke  and  his  dis- 
ciples would  frighten  us  from  cultivat- 

1-  _  ing  the  intellect,  under  the  notion  that 
It  leads  to  the  forma-  , 

tion  of  the  good  citizen,    no  education  is  useful  which  does  not 

2-  teach  us  some  temporal  calling:,  or  some 
It  is   the   best  aid  to  ,       .     , 

professional  skill.  mechanical  art,  or  some  physical  secret. 

I  say  that  a  cultivated  intellect,  be- 
cause it  is  a  good  in  itself,  brings  with  it  a  power 
and  a  grace  to  every  work  and  occupation  which 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  79 

it  undertakes,  and  enables  us  to  be  more  useful, 
and  to  a  greater  number.  There  is  a  duty  we  owe 
to  human  society  as  such,  to  the  state  to  which 
we  belong,  to  the  sphere  in  which  we  move,  to 
the  individuals  towards  whom  we  are  variously 
related,  and  whom  we  successively  encounter  in 
life;  and  that  philosophical  or  liberal  education, 
as  I  have  called  it,  which  is  the  proper  function 
of  a  University,  if  it  refuses  the  foremost  place 
to  professional  interests,  does  but  postpone  them 
to  the  formation  of  the  citizen,  and,  while  it  sub- 
serves the  larger  interests  of  philanthropy,  pre- 
pares also  for  the  successful  prosecution  of  those 
merely  personal  objects,  which  at  first  sight  it 
seems  to  disparage. 

23.  And  now,  Gentlemen,  I  wish  to  be  allowed 
to  enforce  in  detail  what  I  have  been  saying,  by 
some  extracts  from  the  writings  to  which  I  have 
already    alluded,   and   to   which   I   am   so  greatly 
indebted. 

24.  "  It  is   an  undisputed  maxim  in  Political 
Economy,"  says  Dr.  Copleston,  "  that  the  separa- 
tion of  professions  and  the  division  of  labor  tend 
to  the  perfection  of  every  art,  to  the  wealth  of 
nations,  to  the  general  comfort  and  well-being  of 
the  community.     This  principle  of  division  is  in 
some  instances   pursued  so   far  as  to   excite   the 
wonder  of  people  to  whose  notice  it  is  for  the  first 
time  pointed  out.      There  is   no   saying  to  what 


80         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

extent  it  may  not  be  carried;  and  the  more  the 

powers  of  each  individual  are  concentrated  in  one 

employment,     the     greater     skill     and 

The  fact  that  a  Lib-    quickness  will  he  naturally  display  in 

eral  Education  is  use-   performing  it.    But,  while  he  thus  con- 

ful  because  it   trains  a 

man    for    membership   tributes  more  ettectually  to  the  accumu- 

in  society  and  for  pro-    lation   of   national  wealth,   he   becomes 

fessional  study,  I  may 

enforce     by     quotation   himself  more  and  more  degraded  as  a 

from    the    writings    of    ratkmal    being>       In    proportion    as    his 
the    defenders    of    Ox- 
ford, as  follows:  sphere  of  action  is  narrowed  his  mental 

,A>  powers  and  habits  become  contracted ; 

Dr.  Copleston  believes 

that  whereas  every  em-    and  he  resembles  a  subordinate  part  of 

ployment    is    advanced  gome  powerfui  machinery,  useful  in  its 
oy  the  connnina  of  the 

individual  to  that  study,  place,   but   insignificant    and   worthless 
the    individual    himself  /.   .,        T<.   •  ,    »  ... 

i*  harmed.  ou^  °*  ^     ™  ^  '3e  necessary,  as  it  is 

beyond  all  question  necessary,  that  so- 
ciety should  be  split  into  divisions  and  subdivisions, 
in  order  that  its  several  duties  may  be  well  per- 
formed, yet  we  must  be  careful  not  to  yield  up 
ourselves  wholly  and  exclusively  to  the  guidance 
of  this  system ;  we  must  observe  what  its  evils  are, 
and  we  should  modify  and  restrain  it,  by  bringing 
into  action  other  principles,  which  may  serve  as 
a  check  and  counterpoise  to  the  main  force. 

25.  "  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  every  art  is 
improved  by  confining  the  professor  of  it  to  that 
single  study.  But,  although  the  art  itself  is  ad- 
vanced  by  this  concentration  of  mind  in  its 
service,  the  individual  who  is  confined  to  it  goes 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  81 

back.     The  advantage  of  the  community  is  nearly 
in  an  inverse  ratio  with  his  own. 

26.  "  Society   itself   requires   some   other   con- 
tribution from  each  individual,   besides   the   par- 
ticular duties  of  his  profession.     And,  if  no  such 
liberal  intercourse  be  established,  it  is  the  common 
failing   of   human    nature,   to   be    engrossed   with 
petty  views  and  interests,  to  underrate  the  impor- 
tance of  all  in  which  we  are  not  concerned,  and 
to  carry  our  partial  notions  into  cases  where  they 
are  inapplicable,  to  act,  in  short,  as  so  many  uncon- 
nected units,  displacing  and  repelling  one  another. 

27.  "  In  the  cultivation  of  literature  is  found 
that  common  link,  which,  among  the  higher  and 
middling  departments  of  life,  unites  the  jarring 
sects    and    subdivisions    into    one    interest,   which 
supplies  common  topics,  and  kindles  common  feel- 
ings, unmixed  with  those  narrow  prejudices  with 
which  all  professions   are  more   or  less   infected. 
The  knowledge,  too,  which  is  thus  acquired,  ex- 
pands and  enlarges  the  mind,  excites  its  faculties, 
and  calls  those  limbs  and  muscles  into  freer  exer- 
cise which,  by  too  constant  use  in  one  direction, 
not  only  acquire  an  illiberal  air,  but  are  apt  also 
to  lose  somewhat  of  their  native  play  and  energy. 
And  thus,  without  directly  qualifying  a  man  for 
any  of  the  employments  of  life,  it  enriches  and 
ennobles  all.     Without  teaching  him  the  peculiar 
business  of  any  one  office  or  calling,  it  enables  him 


82         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

to  act  his  part  in  each  of  them  with  better  grace 
and  more  elevated  carriage ;  and,  if  happily  planned 
and  conducted,  is  a  main  ingredient  in  that  com- 
plete and  generous  education  which  fits  a  man  '  to 
perform  justly,  skillfully,  and  magnanimously,  all 
the  offices,  both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and 
war.'  "  x 

28.    The  view  of  Liberal  Education,  advocated 
in  these  extracts,  is  expanded  by  Mr.  Davison  in 
the  Essay  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
Mr.    Davison    shows    ferred.      He   lays   more   stress   on   the 

that  a  Liberal  Educa-    «  usefulness  »  of  Liberal  Education  in 

tion    is    highly    useful, 

for  the  larger  sense  of  the  word  than  his 

1-  predecessor    in    the    controversy.     In- 

It  is  far  higher,  even 

in  utility,  than  Educa-  stead   of  arguing  that   the   Utility  of 

tion  for  Utility,  for  knowledge  to  the  individual  varies  in- 

Education  for  Utility  versely  with  its  Utility  to  the  public, 

trains  a  man  for  service    ne  chiefly  employs  himself  on  the  sug- 
iw   his   calling,  whereas 

gestions   contained  in   Dr.   Copleston's 

last  sentences.  He  shows,  first,  that  a  Liberal 
Education  is  something  far  higher,  even  in  the 
scale  of  Utility,  than  what  is  commonly  called  a 
Useful  Education,  and  next,  that  it  is  necessary 
or  useful  for  the  purposes  even  of  that  Profes- 
sional Education  which  commonly  engrosses  the 
title  of  Useful.  The  former  of  these  two  theses 
he  recommends  to  us  in  an  argument  from  which 
the  following  passages  are  selected: — 

1  Vid.  Milton  on  Education.     [Author's  note.] 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  83 

29.  "  It  is  to  take  a  very  contracted  view  of 
life,"  he  says,  "  to  think  with  great  anxiety  how 
persons  may  be  educated  to  superior  skill  in  their 
department,  comparatively  neglecting  or  exclud- 
ing the  more  liberal  and  enlarged  cultivation.     In 
his  (Mr.  Edgeworth's)  system,  the  value  of  every 
attainment  is  to  be  measured  by  its  subserviency 
to  a  calling.    The  specific  duties  of  that  calling  are ' 
exalted  at  the  cost  of  those  free  and  independent 
tastes   and  virtues  which  come  in  to  sustain  the 
common  relations  of  society,  and  raise  the  indi- 
vidual in  them.     In  short,  a  man  is  to  be  usurped 
by  his  profession.     He  is  to  be  clothed  in  its  garb 
from  head  to  foot.     His  virtues,  his  science,  and 
his  ideas  are  all  to  be  put  into  a  gown  or  uniform, 
and  the  whole  man  to  be  shaped,  pressed,  and  stiff- 
ened, in  the  exact  mold  of  his  technical  character. 
Any   interloping   accomplishments,    or   a    faculty 
which  cannot  be  taken  into  public  pay,  if  they 
are  to  be  indulged  in  him  at  all,  must  creep  along 
under  the  cloak  of  his  more  serviceable  privileged 
merits.     Such  is  the  state  of  perfection  to  which 
the   spirit  and   general   tendency   of  this   system 
would  lead  us.  «* 

30.  "  But  the  professional  character  is  not  the 
only  one  which  a  person  engaged  in  a  profession 
has   to   support.    He   is   not   always   upon   duty. 
There    are    services    he    owes,    which    are    neither 
parochial,  nor  forensic,  nor  military,  nor  to  be 


84         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

described  by  any  such  epithet  of  civil  regulation, 
and   yet   are   in   no    wise    inferior   to    those    that 
bear  these  authoritative  titles ;  inferior 
A  Liberal  Education  neither  in  their  intrinsic  value,  nor  their , 

trains  him  for  member-    moral  import,  nor  their  impression  upon  * 
ship  in  society. 

society.     As  a  friend,  as  a  companion, 

as  a  citizen  at  large ;  in  the  connections  of  domestic 
life;  in  the  improvement  and  embellishment  of  his 
leisure,  he  has  a  sphere  of  action,  revolving,  if 
you  please,  within  the  sphere  of  his  profession,  but 
not  clashing  with  it ;  in  which  if  he  can  show  none 
of  the  advantages  of  an  improved  understanding, 
whatever  may  be  his  skill  or  proficiency  in  the 
other,  he  is  no  more  than  an  ill-educated  man. 

31.  "  There  is  a  certain  faculty  in  which  all 
nations  of  any  refinement  are  great  practitioners. 
It  is  not  taught  at  school  or  college  as  a  distinct 
science;  though  it  deserves  that  what  is  taught 
there  should  be  made  to  have  some  reference  to  it ; 
nor  is  it  endowed  at  all  by  the  public;  everybody 
being  obliged  to  exercise  it  for  himself  in  person, 
which  he  does  to  the  best  of  his  skill.  But  in 
nothing  is  there  a  greater  difference  than  in  the 
manner  of  doing  it.  The  advocates  of  professional 
learning  will  smile  when  we  tell  them  that  this 
same  faculty  which  we  would  have  encouraged,  is  t 
simply  that  of  speaking  good  sense  in  English, 
without  fee  or  reward,  in  common  conversation. 
They  will  smile  when  we  lay  some  stress  upon  it; 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  85 

but  in  reality  it  is  no  such  trifle  as  they  imagine. 
Look  into  the  huts  of  savages,  and  see,  for  there 
is  nothing  to  listen  to,  the  dismal  blank  of  their 
stupid  hours  of  silence;  their  professional  avoca- 
tions of  war  and  hunting  are  over;  and,  having 
nothing  to  do,  they  have  nothing  to  say.  Turn 
to  improved  life,  and  you  find  conversation  in  all 
its  forms  the  medium  of  something  more  than  an 
idle  pleasure;  indeed,  a  very  active  agent  in  cir- 
culating and  forming  the  opinions,  tastes,  and 
feelings  of  a  whole  people.  It  makes  of  itself  a 
considerable  affair.  Its  topics  are  the  most  pro- 
miscuous— all  those  which  do  not  belong  to  any 
particular  province.  As  for  its  power  and  influ- 
ence, we  may  fairly  say  that  it  is  of  just  the  same 
consequence  to  a  man's  immediate  society,  how  he 
talks,  as  how  he  acts.  Now  of  all  those  who  fur- 
nish their  share  to  rational  conversation,  a  mere 
adept  in  his  own  art  is  universally  admitted  to 
be  the  worst.  The  sterility  and  uninstructiveness 
of  such  a  person's  social  hours  are  quite  prover- 
bial. Or  if  he  escape  being  dull,  it  is  only  by 
launching  into  ill-timed,  learned  loquacity.  We 
do  not  desire  of  him  lectures  or  speeches ;  and  he 
has  nothing  else  to  give.  Among  benches  he  may 
be  powerful;  but  seated  on  a  chair  he  is  quite 
another  person.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  af- 
firm, that  one  of  the  best  companions  is  a  man 
who,  to  the  accuracy  and  research  of  a  profession, 


86         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

has  joined  a  free  excursive  acquaintance  with 
various  learning,  and  caught  from  it  the  spirit 
of  general  observation." 

32.  Having  thus  shown  that  a  liberal  education 
is  a  real  benefit  to  the  subjects  of  it,  as  members 

of  society,   in   the   various   duties   and 

/*    is    necessary    or    circumstances  and  accidents  of  life,  he 

useful  for  the  purposes    goes    on,   in   the   next   place,   to    show 

of  Professional  Educa-    ,  j        ,  .,  ,. 

tion  for  that,     over    and     above     those     direct 

a.  services  which  might  fairly  be  expected 

Specialization     with-    of    it     it    actually    subserves    the    dis- 
out   preliminary   liberal 
training  has  a  cramp-   charge   of  those   particular  functions, 

and  ^^  °n  ^  mMf    and    the    Pursuit    of    those    particular 
advantages,  which  are   connected  with 
professional  exertion,  and  to  which  Professional 
Education  is  directed. 

33.  "We  admit,"  he  observes,  "that  when  a 
person  makes  a  business  of  one  pursuit,  he  is  in 
the  right  way  to  eminence  in  it ;  and  that  divided 
attention  will  rarely  give  excellence  in  many.    But 
our  assent  will  go  no  further.    For,  to  think  that 
the  way  to  prepare  a  person  for  excelling  in  any 
one  pursuit  (and  that  is  the  only  point  in  hand), 
is  to  fetter  his  early  studies,  and  cramp  the  first 
development  of  his  mind,  by  a  reference  to  the 
exigencies  of  that  pursuit  barely,  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent notion,  and  one  which,  we  apprehend,  de- 
serves to  be  exploded  rather  than  received.     Pos- 
sibly  a   few   of  the   abstract,   insulated   kinds   of 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  87 

learning  might  be  approached  in  that  way.  The 
exceptions  to  be  made  are  very  few,  and  need  not 
be  recited.  But  for  the  acquisition  of  professional 
and  practical  ability  such  maxims  are  death  to 
it.  The  main  ingredients  of  that  ability  are 
requisite  knowledge  and  cultivated  faculties;  but, 
of  the  two,  the  latter  is  by  far  the  chief.  A  man 
of  well-improved  faculties  has  the  command  of  an- 
other's knowledge.  A  man  without  them,  has  not 
the  command  of  his  own. 

34.  "  Of  the  intellectual  powers,  the  judgment 
is  that  which  takes  the  foremost  lead  in  life.  How 
to  form  it  to  the  two  habits  it  ought 

to  possess,  of  exactness  and  vigor,  is  Judgment,  the  chief 
the  problem.  It  would  be  ignorant  pre-  &*£<£*?  £ 
sumption  so  much  as  to  hint  at  any  by  the  study  of  a  va- 
routine  of  method  by  which  these 


qualities    may    with    certainty    be    im-    My    aid    and    correct 

,  ,.  each  other. 

parted  to  every  or  any  understanding. 

Still,  however,  we  may  safely  lay  it  down  that 
they  are  not  to  be  got  '  by  a  gatherer  of  simples,' 
but  are  the  combined  essence  and  extracts  of  many 
different  things,  drawn  from  much  varied  reading 
and  discipline,  first,  and  observation  afterwards. 
For  if  there  be  a  single  intelligible  point  on  this 
head,  it  is  that  a  man  who  has  been  trained  to 
think  upon  one  subject  or  for  one  subject  only, 
will  never  be  a  good  judge  even  in  that  one: 
whereas  the  enlargement  of  his  circle  gives  him 


88         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

increased  knowledge  and  power  in  a  rapidly  in- 
creasing ratio.  So  much  do  ideas  act,  not  as  soli- 
tary units,  but  by  grouping  and  combination;  and 
so  clearly  do  all  the  things  that  fall  within  the 
proper  province  of  the  same  faculty  of  the  mind, 
intertwine  with  and  support  each  other.  Judg- 
ment lives  as  it  were  by  comparison  and  discrim- 
ination. Can  it  be  doubted,  then,  whether  the 
range  and  extent  of  that  assemblage  of  things 
upon  which  it  is  practiced  in  its  first  essays  are 
of  use  to  its  power? 

35.  "  To  open  our  way  a  little  further  on  this 
matter,  we  will  define  what  we  mean  by  the  power 
of  judgment ;   and  then  try  to   ascertain   among 
what  kind  of  studies  the  improvement  of  it  may 
be  expected  at  all. 

36.  "  Judgment  does  not  stand  here  for  a  cer- 
tain homely,  useful  quality  of  intellect,  that  guards 
a  person  from  committing  mistakes  to  the  injury 
of  his   fortunes   or  common  reputation;  but  for 
that  master-principle  of  business,  literature,  and 
talent,  which  gives  him  strength  in  any  subject  he 
chooses  to  grapple  with,  and  enables  him  to  seize 
the  strong  point  in  it.     Whether  this  definition  be 
metaphysically  correct  or  not,  it  comes  home  to  the 
substance  of  our  inquiry.     It  describes  the  power 
that  every  one  desires  to  possess  when  he  comes  to 
act  in  a  profession,  or  elsewhere;  and  corresponds 
with  our  best  idea  of  a  cultivated  mind. 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  89 

37.  "  Next,  it  will  not  be  denied,  that  in  order 
to  do  any  good  to  the  judgment,  the  mind  must  be 
employed  upon  such  subjects  as  come  within  the 
cognizance   of  that  faculty,   and  give   some  real 
exercise  to  its  perceptions.     Here  we  have  a  rule 
of  selection  by  which  the  different  parts  of  learn- 
ing may  be  classed  for  our  purpose.    Those  which 
belong  to  the  province  of  the  judgment  are  re- 
ligion (in  its  evidences  and  interpretation),  ethics, 
history,    eloquence,    poetry,    theories    of    general 
speculation,  the  fine  arts,  and  works  of  wit.    Great 
as  the  variety  of  these  large  divisions  of  learning 
may  appear,  they  are   all  held  in  union  by  two 
capital  principles  of  connection.     First,  they  are 
all  quarried  out  of  one  and  the  same  great  subject 
of  man's  moral,  social,  and  feeling  nature.     And 
secondly,  they  are  all  under  the  control  (more  or 
less  strict)  of  the  same  power  of  moral  reason." 

38.  "  If  these  studies,"  he  continues,  "  be  such 
as  give  a  direct  play  and  exercise  to  the  faculty 
of  the  judgment,  then  they  are  the  true  basis  of 
education   for   the   active   and   inventive   powers, 
whether  destined  for  a  profession  or   any   other 
use.     Miscellaneous  as  the  assemblage  may  appear, 
of  history,  eloquence,  poetry,  ethics,  etc.,  blended 
together,   they   will   all   conspire  in   an   union   of 
effect.     They  are  necessary  mutually  to  explain 
and  interpret  each  other.     The  knowledge  derived 
from  them  all  will  amalgamate,  and  the  habits  of 


90         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

a  mind  versed  and  practiced  in  them  by  turns  will 
join  to  produce  a  richer  vein  of  thought  and  of 
more  general  and  practical  application  than  could 
be  obtained  of  any  single  one,  as  the  fusion  of 
the  metals  into  Corinthian  brass  gave  the  artist 
his  most  ductile  and  perfect  material.  Might  we 
venture  to  imitate  an  author  (whom  indeed  it  is 
much  safer  to  take  as  an  authority  than  to  attempt 
to  copy),  Lord  Bacon,  in  some  of  his  concise  illus- 
trations of  the  comparative  utility  of  the  different 
studies,  we  should  say  that  history  would  give 
fullness,  moral  philosophy  strength,  and  poetry 
elevation  to  the  understanding.  Such  in  leality 
is  the  natural  force  and  tendency  of  the  studies ; 
but  there  are  few  minds  susceptible  enough 
to  derive  from  them  any  sort  of  virtue  adequate 
to  those  high  expressions.  We  must  be  contented 
therefore  to  lower  our  panegyric  to  this,  that  a 
person  cannot  avoid  receiving  some  infusion  and 
tincture,  at  least,  of  those  several  qualities,  from 
that  course  of  diversified  reading.  One  thing  is 
unquestionable,  that  the  elements  of  general  reason 
•are  not  to  be  found  fully  and  truly  expressed  in 
any  one  kind  of  study;  and  that  he  who  would 
wish  to  know  her  idiom,  must  read  it  in  many 
books. 

39.  "  If  different  studies  are  useful  for  aiding, 
they  are  still  more  useful  for  correcting  each  other ; 
for  as  they  have  their  particular  merits  severally, 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  9J 

so  they  have  their  defects,  and  the  most  extensive 
acquaintance  with  one  can  produce  only  an  intel- 
lect either  too  flashy  or  too  jejune,  or  infected 
with  some  other  fault  of  confined  reading.  His- 
tory, for  example,  shows  things  as  they  are,  that 
is,  the  morals  and  interests  of  men  disfigured  and 
perverted  by  all  their  imperfections  of  passion, 
folly,  and  ambition ;  philosophy  strips  the  picture 
too  much;  poetry  adorns  it  too  much;  the  con- 
centrated lights  of  the  three  correct  the  false 
peculiar  coloring  of  each,  and  show  us  the  truth. 
The  right  mode  of  thinking  upon  it  is  to  be  had 
from  them  taken  all  together,  as  every  one  must 
know  who  has  seen  their  united  contributions  of 
thought  and  feeling  expressed  in  the  masculine 
sentiment  of  our  immortal  statesman,  Mr.  Burke, 
whose  eloquence  is  inferior  only  to  his  more  ad- 
mirable wisdom.  If  any  mind  improved  like  his,  is 
to  be  our  instructor,  we  must  go  to  the  fountain- 
head  of  things  as  he  did,  and  study  not  his  works 
but  his  method;  by  the  one  we  may  become  feeble 
imitators,  by  the  other  arrive  at  some  ability  of 
our  own.  But,  as  all  biography  assures  us,  he 
and  every  other  able  thinker,  has  been  formed,  not 
by  a  parsimonious  admeasurement  of  studies  to 
some  definite  future  object  (which  is  Mr.  Edge- 
worth's  maxim),  but  by  taking  a  wide  and  liberal 
compass,  and  thinking  a  great  deal  on  many  sub- 
jects with  no  better  end  in  view  than  because  the 


92         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

exercise  was  one  which  made  them  more  rational 
and  intelligent  beings." 

40.  But  I  must  bring  these  extracts  to  an  end. 
To-day  I  have  confined  myself  to  saying  that  that 
training  of  the  intellect,  which  is  best  for  the 
individual  himself,  best  enables  him  to  discharge 
his  duties  to  society.  The  Philosopher,  indeed, 
and  the  man  of  the  world  differ  in  their  very 
notion,  but  the  methods,  by  which  they  are  re- 
spectively formed,  are  pretty  much  the  same.  The 
Philosopher  has  the  same  command  of  matters 
of  thought,  which  the  true  citizen  and  gentleman 
has  of  matters  of  business  and  conduct.  If  then 
a  practical  end  must  be  assigned  to  a  University 
course,  I  say  it  is  that  of  training  good  members 
of  society.  Its  art  is  the  art  of  social  life,  and 
its  end  is  fitness  for  the  world.  It  neither  con- 
fines its  views  to  particular  professions  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  creates  heroes  or  inspires  genius  on 
the  other.  Works  indeed  of  genius  fall  under 
no  art;  heroic  minds  come  under  no  rule;  a  Uni- 
versity is  not  a  birthplace  of  poets  or  of  immortal 
authors,  of  founders  of  schools,  leaders  of  colonies, 
or  conquerors  of  nations.  It  does  not  promise  a 
generation  of  Aristotles  or  Newtons,  of  Napoleons 
or  Washingtons,  of  Raphaels  or  Shakespeares, 
though  such  miracles  of  nature  it  has  before  now 
contained  within  its  precincts.  Nor  is  it  content 
on  the  other  hand  with  forming  the  critic  or  the 


PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  93 

experimentalist,  the  economist  or  the  engineer, 
though  such  too  it  includes  within  its  scope.  But 
a  University  training  is  the  great  ordinary  means 
to  a  great  but  ordinary  end;  it  aims  at  raising 
the  intellectual  tone  of  society,  at  cultivating  the 
public  mind,  at  purifying  the  national  taste,  at 
supplying  true  principles  to  popular  enthusiasm 
and  fixed  aims  to  popular  aspiration,  at  giving 
enlargement  and  sobriety  to  the  ideas  of  the  age, 
at  facilitating  the  exercise  of  political  power,  and 
refining  the  intercourse  of  private  life.  It  is  the 
education  which  gives  a  man  a  clear  conscious 
view  of  his  own  opinions  and  judgments,  a  truth 
in  developing  them,  an  eloquence  in  expressing 
them,  and  a  force  in  urging  them.  It  teaches  him 
to  see  things  as  they  are,  to  go  right  to  the  point, 
to  disentangle  a  skein  of  thought,  to  detect  what 
is  sophistical,  and  to  discard  what  is  irrelevant. 
It  prepares  him  to  fill  any  post  with  credit,  and 
to  master  any  subject  with  facility.  It  shows 
him  how  to  accommodate  himself  to  others,  how 
to  throw  himself  into  their  state  of  mind,  how  to 
bring  before  them  his  own,  how  to  influence  them, 
how  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  them,  how 
to  bear  with  them.  He  is  at  home  in  any  society, 
he  has  common  ground  with  every  class ;  he  knows 
when  to  speak  and  when  to  be  silent ;  he  is  able  to 
converse,  he  is  able  to  listen ;  he  can  ask  a  question 
pertinently,  and  gain  a  lesson  seasonably,  when 


94         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

he  has  nothing  to  impart  himself ;  he  is  ever  ready, 
yet  never  in  the  way ;  he  is  a  pleasant  companion, 
and  a  comrade  you  can  depend  upon;  he  knows 
when  to  be  serious  and  when  to  trifle,  and  he  has 
a  sure  tact  which  enables  him  to  trifle  with  grace- 
fulness and  to  be  serious  with  effect.  He  has  the 
repose  of  a  mind  which  lives  in  itself,  while  it  lives 
in  the  world,  and  which  has  resources  for  its  hap- 
piness at  home  when  it  cannot  go  abroad.  He  has 
a  gift  which  serves  him  in  public,  and  supports 
him  in  retirement,  without  which  good  fortune  is 
but  vulgar,  and  with  which  failure  and  disappoint- 
ment have  a  charm.  The  art  which  tends  to  make 
a  man  all  this,  is  in  the  object  which  it  pursues  as 
useful  as  the  art  of  wealth  or  the  art  of  health, 
though  it  is  less  susceptible  of  method,  and  less 
tangible,  less  certain,  less  complete  in  its  result. 


OUTLINE  OF 
"  THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  " 

Thesis 

The  American  college,  having  fallen  into  a  state  of  dis- 
organization, should  be  reorganized  in  such  a  manner  that 
it  will  become  a  place  where  the  spirit  of  learning  may 
flourish. 

Outline  Proper 

I.     We  have    fallen  into   a  sympathetic  discontent  with 
the  college. 

II.    The   American  college  has  played   a  unique  part   in 
American  life,  for 

A.  It  has  been  the  seat  of  ideals. 

B.  It  has   avoided   the   narrow  concentration   of 

the  professional  school,  and  has  served  as  a 
place  of  orientation. 

III.  The  changes   that   have   taken   place   in   the   college, 

though  not  valueless,  have  resulted  in  almost  com- 
plete disorganization,  for 

A.  There    has    been    a    quickening    of    interest, 

which,  however  desirable,  brought  about  a 
state  of  disorganization. 

B.  The   introduction    of   the   elective    system    re- 

sulted in  a  divorce  between  the  studies  and 
college  life,  and  an  estrangement  of  teach- 
ers from  the  life  of  the  students. 

C.  The   constituency    of   the    college    has    wholly 

changed  through  the  growth  of  a  non-book- 
ish majority. 

IV.  In  effecting  the  needed  reorganization,  we  should  seek 

to   make  the   college   a   place  where   the   spirit   of 
learning  may  flourish,  for 

95 


96         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

A.  We   have    been    mistaken    in    emphasizing    in- 

struction rather  than  the  life  of  the  mind, 
learning  rather  than  the  spirit  of  learning. 

B.  An  acceptance  of  these  ideas  would  remove  a 

serious  misunderstanding  between  teachers 
and  students,  for 

1.  The  teachers  desire  to  impart  learning, 

and  the  parents  desire  for  their  sons 
what  may  be  got  out  of  the  life  of 
the  college. 

2.  The  parents  are  right  in  this,  provided 

that  the  life  of  the  college  includes 
the  spirit  of  learning. 

V.    Such  a  reorganization  will  involve  the  following  con- 
siderations : 

A.  The  college  teacher  shall  make  himself  a  part 

of  the  life  outside  the  class-room. 

B.  Such  proposals  as  that  limiting  the  period  of 

general  study  to  two  years  are  absurd:  a 
college  education  demands  a  special  environ- 
ment for  a  period  of  four  years. 

C.  The  undue  prominence  of  athletics  and  other 

non-academic  activities  can  easily  be  ob- 
viated by  bringing  study  into  competition 
with  them. 

D.  The  creation  of  a  spirit  of  learning,  the  crea- 

tion of  a  society  of  teachers  and  students, 
cannot  be  achieved  through  legislation. 

E.  Whatever   method   is   used,  the   nursery   atti- 

tude must  be  avoided. 


OUTLINE  OF 

"KNOWLEDGE    VIEWED    IN    RELATION 
TO  PROFESSIONAL  SKILL  " 

Thesis 

Since  intellectual  culture  is  useful  in  being  an  end  in  it- 
self, and  since  it  is  useful  in  training  men  for  membership 
in  society  and  for  professional  study,  a  Liberal  Education 
is  superior  in  utility  to  an  education  which  aims  directly 
at  skill  in  a  calling. 

Outline  Proper 

I.  That  the  idea  of  a  Liberal  Education  (which  has  been 
set  forth  in  my  two  preceding  discourses)  has  not 
been  accepted  by  all  great  men,  may  be  exemplified 
by  the  controversy  between  the  following: 

A.  Certain    Edinburgh    Reviewers,    advocates    of 

education  for  Utility,  and 

B.  Two  defenders  of  Oxford,  viz., 

1.  Dr.  Copleston,  and 

2.  Mr.    Davison,   who   replied   to   Locke   as 

well  as  to  the  Reviewers. 

II.  We  may  easily  combat  the  theory  of  Utility  in  Edu- 
cation by  maintaining  that  intellectual  culture,  in 
being  its  own  end,  is  useful,  for 

A.  Locke's   argument  in   favor  of  a  useful  edu- 

cation rests  upon  the  definition  of  useful  as 
that  which  has  a  direct  value  to  the  indi- 
vidual in  his  calling. 

B.  The  argument  of  the  Reviewers  rests  upon  the 

definition  of  useful  as  that  which  serves  the 
community  at  large  by  advancing  the  sum 
of  knowledge. 

C.  Both  of  these  views  may  be  met  by  saying 

that  intellectual  culture  is  its  own  end,  since 
what  has  an  end  in  itself  has  its  use  in  itself 
also. 

97 


98         OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

III.  Taking  "useful"  to  mean,  not  "what  is  good"  but 

"  what  tends  to  good,"  we  are  again  drawn  to  the 
conclusion  that  a  Liberal  Education  is  in  a  high 
degree  useful,  for 

A.  What  is  good  is  always  useful,  since  good  is 

reproductive  of  good. 

B.  The  usefulness  of  what  is  good  may  be  illus- 

trated by  the  parallel  of  bodily  health. 

C.  A    Liberal    Education    serves    the    following 

uses: 

1.  It  leads  to  the  formation  of  the  good 

citizen. 

2.  It  is  the  best  aid  to  professional  skill. 

IV.  The  fact  that  a  Liberal  Education  is  useful  because 

it  trains  a  man  for  membership  in  society  and  for 
professional  study,  I  may  enforce  by  quotation  from 
the  writings  of  the  defenders  of  Oxford,  as  follows: 

A.  Dr.    Copleston    believes    that    whereas    every 

employment  is  advanced  by  the  confining  of 
the  individual  to  that  study,  the  individual 
himself  is  harmed. 

B.  Mr.  Davison  shows  that  a  Liberal  Education 

is  highly  useful,  for 

1.  It  is   far  higher,  even  in  utility,   than 

Education  for  Utility,  for 

a.  Education   for    Utility  trains   a 

man  for  service  in  his  calling, 
whereas 

b.  A  Liberal  Education  trains  him 

for  membership  in  society. 

2.  It  is  necessary  or  useful  for  the  pur- 

poses of  Professional  Education,  for 

a.  Specialization    without    prelimi- 

nary liberal  training  has  a 
cramping  effect  on  the  mind, 
and 

b.  Judgment,  the  chief  of  the  in- 

tellectual faculties,  is  formed 
only  by  the  study  of  a  variety 
of  divisions  of  learning,  which 
mutually  aid  and  correct  each 
other. 


SUMMARY  OF 
"THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING" 

THE  American  college,  having  fallen  into  a 
state  of  disorganization,  should  be  reorganized  in 
such  a  manner  that  it  will  become  a  place  where 
the  spirit  of  learning  may  flourish.  The  sym- 
pathetic discontent  which  we  now  feel  for  the 
college  has  been  occasioned  by  its  decline  as  an 
instrument  in  our  national  life.  In  the  past,  it  has 
played  a  unique  part  in  that  life,  in  being  the 
seat  of  ideals  and,  unlike  the  professional  schools, 
a  place  of  orientation.  But  the  college  has  under- 
gone fundamental  changes,  which,  though  not 
valueless,  have  resulted  in  almost  complete  disor- 
ganization. The  principal  cause  of  the  changes 
that  brought  about  this  disorganization  was  the 
introduction  of  the  elective  system.  This  caused 
a  divorce  between  the  studies  and  the  life  of  the 
college,  and  an  estrangement  between  teachers  and 
students.  Meanwhile,  the  constituency  of  the  col- 
lege  wholly  changed,  since  now  men  go  to  college, 
not  for  learning,  but  for  the  incidental  associa- 
tions of  the  place.  These  are  the  changes,  then, 
that  have  brought  about  the  disorganization,  and 
have  thus  created  the  need  of  a  reorganization. 

99 


100       OUTLINES  AND  SUMMARIES 

In  effecting  this  reorganization,  we  should  hold 
before  us  the  conception  of  the  college  as  a  place 
where  the  spirit  of  learning  may  flourish.  The 
chief  mistake  that  we  have  made  is  the  emphasis 
we  have  laid  on  instruction  rather  than  the  life  of 
the  mind;  we  must  realize  that  the  object  of  the 
college  is  not  learning,  but  discipline  and  the  en- 
lightenment of  the  mind,  and  that  what  we  should 
seek  to  impart,  therefore,  is  the  spirit  of  learning. 
Accordingly,  before  we  can  proceed,  we  must  re- 
move a  serious  misunderstanding,  that,  namely, 
between  the  teachers,  who  desire  to  impart  learn- 
ing, and  the  parents  of  the  students,  who  desire 
for  their  sons  what  may  be  got  out  of  the  life  of 
the  college.  In  a  sense  the  parents  are  right; 
they  are  right  in  emphasizing  the  life  of  the  col- 
lege. But  that  life  should  include  the  spirit  of 
learning.  Now,  a  reorganization  which  aims  to 
make  the  college  a  place  where  the  spirit  of 
learning  may  flourish,  involves  several  considera- 
tions. In  the  first  place,  the  life  of  the  college 
will  never  include  the  spirit  of  learning  until  the 
teacher  makes  himself  a  part  of  the  life  outside 
the  class-room.  Again,  the  student  must  live  in 
the  special  environment  which  the  college  demands 
for  four  years;  such  proposals  as  that  limiting 
the  period  of  general  study  to  two  years  are 
absurd.  Again,  athletics  and  other  non-academic 
activities,  which  have  been  giving  us  much  con- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING         101 

cern,  thrive  unduly  because  study  does  not  com- 
pete with  them ;  change  the  environment,  introduce 
the  spirit  of  learning,  and  they  will  assume  the 
subordinate  position  which  is  their  due.  Further, 
it  is  important  for  us  to  realize  that  such  a 
society  of  teachers  and  students  as  has  been  de- 
scribed cannot  be  achieved  through  legislation, 
and  that,  whatever  method  is  used,  we  must  not 
resort  to  the  nursery  attitude — to  the  employ- 
ment of  artificial  assistance. 


APPENDIX 

TO  THE  INSTRUCTOR 

THE  difficulties  that  beset  the  student  in  the 
writing  of  outlines  and  summaries  are  so  formida- 
ble that  they  may  be  considerably  reduced  without 
serious  loss  of  mental  discipline.  The  following 
means  perhaps  give  enough,  and  not  too  much, 
help. 

I.  The  Use  of  Questions. — If  the  instructor  has 
provided  himself  in  advance  with  a  good  outline 
of  the  essay  to  be  studied,  he  can  easily  compose 
a  set  of  questions  of  which  the  answers  will  be 
the  main  headings  (group  sentences).  When  the 
student  first  reads  the  essay,  and  when  he  is  work- 
ing on  the  outline,  he  will  find  these  questions  of 
great  value  in  indicating  the  main  divisions  of  the 
thought.  After  one  or  two  essays  have  been 
studied,  the  instructor  might  well  increase  the  dif- 
ficulty gradually  by  confusing  the  order  of  the 
questions,  and  by  interpolating  additional  ques- 
tions, at  first  only  one  and  finally  as  many  as  half 
a  dozen.  Here  is  a  set  of  questions  on  "  The  Spirit 
of  Learning  " : 

103 


104  APPENDIX 

1.  What  is  our  attitude  toward  the  college? 

2.  What  has  been  the  place  of  the  college  in  Ameri- 
can life? 

3.  What  changes  have  occurred  in  the  college,  and 
what  has  been  the  effect  of  these  changes? 

4.  In  accordance  with  what  conception  should  the 
college  be  reorganized? 

5.  By    what    means    may    the    reorganization    be 
effected? 

A  question  that  might  be  interpolated  is : 

Just  what  does  Mr.  Wilson  mean  by  "  the  spirit  of 
learning  "  ? 

II.  Division  of  the  Work. — If  the  essay  is  long 
or  difficult,  it  should  be  given  six  or  seven  days, 
and  the  student  should  submit  the  summary  sen- 
tences in  installments.  When  five  days  are  enough, 
the  work  may  be  divided  as  follows : 

First  day — Summary   Sentences  due. 
Second  day — Short  Outline  of  Theme  due. 
Third  day — Group  Sentences  due. 
Fourth  day — Theme  due  (500  or  600  words). 
Fifth  day — Outline  of  Essay  due. 

The  summary  sentences  and  the  group  sentences 
need  not  be  returned  to  the  student ;  it  is  assumed 
that  he  preserves  a  duplicate  set  of  each  in  his 
notebook.  As  for  the  class-room  hours,  most  of 
them  may  be  given  to  a  careful  reading  of  all  or 
of  parts  of  the  essay.  The  effectiveness  of  the 
work  will  be  enhanced  if  the  subjects  of  the 


105 

themes  are  related,  however  loosely,  to  the  essays. 
Subjects  that  might  be  used  in  connection  with 
"  The  Spirit  of  Learning  "  are  as  follows : 

The  Spirit  of  Learning  in  My  College. 

The  Relation  of  Learning  and  Athletics  in  My 
College. 

The  Relation  of  the  "  Spirit  of  Learning  "  to  "  Col- 
lege Spirit." 

College  Conversation. 

Types  of  College  Students. 


THE    END 


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